UAE telecom and digital services provider du, through its technology arm du Tech, has signed a strategic memorandum of understanding (MoU) with cybersecurity technology company Rilian to strengthen sovereign, AI-driven cybersecurity across the UAE.
The partnership was announced during GISEC Global 2026 in Dubai. It will focus on protecting critical infrastructure and industrial sectors, where the growing convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) is creating new cybersecurity challenges.
The collaboration will combine du Tech’s National Hypercloud and managed security capabilities with Rilian’s Caspian agentic AI platform. The companies aim to develop cybersecurity capabilities that can protect complex IT and OT environments while meeting the UAE’s requirements for data sovereignty, regulatory compliance and cyber resilience.
Jasim Al Awadi, chief ICT officer at du, and Christian Schnedler, CEO of Rilian, represented the two companies at the signing ceremony. The event was witnessed by Dr Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, head of the UAE Cyber Security Council, and du CEO Fahad Al Hassawi.
The agreement comes as the UAE increases its focus on sovereign digital infrastructure and locally governed AI services. du Tech has been positioning its National Hypercloud as a platform for secure and sovereign workloads, including services designed around the operational and regulatory needs of organisations in the country.
Rilian’s Caspian platform is designed to provide agentic capabilities across complex IT and OT environments. The company showcased the platform at GISEC 2026, including its use in investigating incidents that move from IT networks into operational technology environments.
For critical infrastructure operators, securing OT systems is particularly important because disruptions can affect physical operations and essential services. The du Tech-Rilian partnership seeks to address this challenge by bringing AI-powered security capabilities together with locally hosted infrastructure.
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