Intelligence, Information Operations, and Cyber-Physical Security in the Middle East, with a focus on Saudi Arabia

Artificial intelligence is increasingly reshaping intelligence, information operations, and cyber-physical security in national security competition around the world. As AI-enabled technologies are integrated into IoT platforms, industrial control systems, and smart city infrastructure, they are changing how information is collected, analyzed, and acted upon across civilian and strategic domains. These capabilities expand analytic and operational capacity, but they also create new risks related to governance, resilience, deception, disruption, and cascading failure. This paper examines these shifts with attention to regulatory and institutional challenges in the Middle East, using Saudi Arabia as a case study. It analyzes how oversight of AI-enabled systems is distributed across cybersecurity authorities, data governance institutions, sector regulators, infrastructure operators, and technology vendors. Institutions such as the National Cybersecurity Authority and the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority provide strategic direction through cybersecurity controls and AI governance frameworks. Yet questions remain regarding cross-sector coordination, accountability for AI-enabled decision making, and dependence on global technology supply chains. By tracing Saudi Arabia’s evolving regulatory landscape, the paper argues that governance ambiguity can become a source of systemic risk as AI becomes more deeply embedded in intelligence functions and critical infrastructure.