Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

Saudi Arabia’s cloud and data protection framework is substantive, cross-sectoral, and still maturing, creating a dynamic environment for technology companies entering the region. The threshold challenge is not merely identifying the applicable rules but truly understanding how multiple overlapping frameworks interact and where regulatory gaps require considered judgment in the absence of published guidance.

Sports sponsorship agreements were once relatively straightforward: brand visibility in exchange for fees. This is no longer the case. Today, most meaningful sponsorships involve significant data components, whether fan engagement platforms, digital activations, or, increasingly, AI-driven analytics. As a result, these agreements are starting to look much more like technology and data contracts.

Get ahead of the game by joining partner Don Shelkey and associates Charlotte Cavendish and Jesse Taylor on March 4, 2026, from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm ET, for a discussion on emerging trends in sports business transactions. From artificial intelligence–driven fan engagement to innovative sponsorship models shaping the future of sports transactions, the Morgan Lewis team will explore the trends, opportunities, and challenges shaping these transactions.

As AI continues to reshape technology transactions, deal lawyers have been compelled to revisit longstanding allocations of risk, revisit boilerplate, and develop new contracting mechanics to address novel uncertainty. While the core goals of technology deals remain the same—facilitating commercial outcomes and protecting the business—AI introduces distinctive pressure points across intellectual property, data, regulatory exposure, and liability frameworks.

As technology transactions continue to evolve rapidly, staying ahead of trends, innovations, and regulatory shifts is crucial. Join our Tech & Sourcing Webinar Series on January 22 at 12:00 pm ET/11:00 am CT for an insightful discussion on Tech Transactions: The Year Ahead. This session, featuring Doneld G. Shelkey, Marina G. Aronchik, and A. Benjamin Klaber, will delve into developments in artificial intelligence, data-driven deals, and new sourcing models, providing key insights to help navigate the changing landscape in 2026.

Kari Krusmark, a partner in our technology transactions, outsourcing, and commercial contracts practice, is a leading advisor in complex technology initiatives, outsourcing arrangements, and digital transformation projects. With deep background guiding global companies through high-value technology deals, evolving regulatory requirements, and vendor ecosystem shifts, Kari has a unique perspective on how organizations should prepare for the rapidly changing technology and outsourcing landscape. Her insights highlight the key trends shaping 2026 and what businesses should be doing now to stay ahead.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have rapidly transformed into two of the most dynamic technology markets in the world. Driven by ambitious national strategies—Dubai’s digital-first initiatives and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030—both countries are positioning themselves as regional leaders in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, fintech, cloud computing, and smart infrastructure. Despite extraordinary public-sector investment and momentum, the path to sustained innovation and commercialization is shaped by a mix of high-value opportunities and structural challenges.

One of the key concepts in contracting for generative AI (GenAI) is allocating rights to data that the GenAI tool processes and generates, as well as any data used to train, test, and improve the underlying AI model. A new concern in these contracts relates to the use of a GenAI tool (or data generated by this tool) for competitive purposes and corresponding contractual restrictions. This blog post outlines some of the relevant considerations when evaluating and negotiating contractual provisions relating to these data rights and use restrictions.

Our Morgan Lewis colleagues recently wrote on the US administration’s new artificial intelligence action plan, specifically as the plan seeks to foster innovation and expedite the development of AI data centers and the necessary energy infrastructure required for such expansion.

In an era when data is everything, everywhere, all at once and computation has almost no limit, ensuring privacy while leveraging data analytics is paramount. The US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently published NIST Special Publication 800-226 (the Guidelines), a comprehensive guide for evaluating and achieving differential privacy, a cutting edge approach to protecting individual privacy when using and relying on large datasets.