Omantel Launches AI Hub and Backs 5 Omani Startups

Oman's national telecom operator Omantel has launched its AI Centre of Excellence and a dedicated startup program, selecting five Omani technology companies as its inaugural cohort and offering them access to live infrastructure, real data environments, and commercial pathways across telecom, energy, healthcare, and government. The announcement, made at the 10th Rawabet Forum hosted by the Oman Investment Authority, came just days after the World Bank warned that Oman's AI economy remains "emerging" compared to its GCC neighbours.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Omantel's AI Centre of Excellence combines infrastructure, live data, and domain expertise in one national platform
• Five Omani startups from Omantel Innovation Labs are the first selected cohort
• The "Everyone AI" strategy connects founders with Omantel's commercial operations and partnerships
• World Bank: Oman's digital economy sits at just 2.5% of GDP against the 10% Vision 2040 target
• A 2% digital economy GDP lift could add 30,000 jobs to Oman's workforce

🏛️ What Is the AI Centre of Excellence?

Announced at the 10th Rawabet Forum and formally confirmed to global press via GlobeNewswire on May 15, Omantel's AI Centre of Excellence is a national platform designed to move AI products from experiment to commercial deployment. As Trade Arabia reported, the centre integrates four core capabilities:

• Advanced AI and cloud infrastructure
• Integrated data environments for real-world product testing
• Operational and domain expertise across Omantel's business units
• Go-to-market support and access to regional and international partnerships

The defining feature is access to live operational environments. Startups do not get a sandbox: they test their products against actual telecom, energy, or government data inside Omantel's ecosystem. According to The Fast Mode, the program is explicitly designed to bridge the gap from "experimentation to commercialization," addressing one of the most common failure points for AI startups in emerging markets.

🚀 The Five Omani Startups Selected

According to the official press release on Zawya, Omantel signed collaboration agreements with five startups previously accelerated through its Innovation Labs. Each gains access to Omantel's infrastructure, data environments, technical expertise, and commercial network:

• Decoil: Builds enterprise platforms and generative AI solutions for business automation, helping large organisations streamline complex workflows.
• ORKI: As confirmed on orki.ai, ORKI deploys AI agents on WhatsApp, Instagram, and the web to automate sales, customer support, and business growth for MENA businesses.
• Remedy: Offers an AI-driven enterprise execution platform designed to close the gap between strategic planning and day-to-day operations.
• DeepAstra: An AI startup from the Omantel Innovation Labs cohort; full product details are not yet publicly disclosed.
• Wiya: An AI startup from the Omantel Innovation Labs cohort; full product details are not yet publicly disclosed.

As TechAfrica News noted, the program targets product development across telecommunications, financial services, energy, healthcare, and government, five sectors with among the largest procurement budgets in Oman.

🌐 The "Everyone AI" Strategy: What It Means for Oman's Startup Scene

The AI Centre sits within Omantel's broader "Everyone AI" strategic framework. Rather than treating AI as a backend efficiency tool, the strategy repositions Omantel as an active ecosystem builder: connecting entrepreneurs, infrastructure, and real commercial demand under one institutional roof.

For Oman's startup founders, this signals a meaningful shift. The era of building a product and hoping a large buyer notices is giving way to a structured model where Oman's biggest telecom operator is actively seeking homegrown AI solutions to its operational problems. That demand signal, backed by procurement budgets across telecom and government, is a different kind of opportunity than a grant or a competition prize.

The five startups also benefit from Omantel's regional and international partnerships, giving them a potential pathway into GCC markets from the outset, without the years of cold outreach that typically slow down MENA startup expansion.

📊 World Bank: Oman Has the Foundation, Now Needs the Results

The timing of Omantel's launch was striking. Just three days before the GlobeNewswire announcement, Zaki Badie Khoury, Senior Digital Specialist at the World Bank Group, delivered a presentation in Muscat on Oman's AI readiness. As Oman Observer reported on May 12, his message was frank: Oman has built one of the Gulf's strongest digital foundations, but has not yet translated that foundation into AI-era economic outcomes.

On the positive side, Khoury noted near-universal 4G coverage, advanced 5G deployment, strong cybersecurity frameworks, and digitized government services, placing Oman among the stronger GCC performers on digital infrastructure readiness. The gap, however, remains stark: Oman's digital economy contributes only 2.4 to 2.8 percent of GDP, against a Vision 2040 target of 10 percent. The World Bank calculated that a 2 percent increase in this contribution alone could add 30,000 jobs to Oman's workforce. With 64 percent of the population under 30, the urgency is not theoretical.

🇴🇲 The Vision 2040 Connection

Oman's national development blueprint targets a digital economy contributing 10 percent of GDP by 2040. The path from the current 2.5 percent runs through AI commercialization, not just infrastructure investment. Building data centers and acquiring fiber networks is necessary, but not sufficient. What creates GDP contribution is AI products that are sold, deployed, and generating revenue inside Omani companies and government ministries.

This is precisely what the AI Centre of Excellence is designed to produce. When startups like Decoil, ORKI, and Remedy build AI solutions inside Omantel's ecosystem and deploy them into telecom, energy, and government sectors, every contract adds to the digital economy's GDP share. The aggregate effect of dozens of such programs, replicated across the public and private sector, is how Oman closes the gap to 10 percent.

The initiative also fits neatly alongside Oman's AI Special Economic Zone, which is attracting international semiconductor and AI firms. The AI Centre provides the domestic startup pipeline to complement those international players: Oman-built products, not just foreign-operated facilities, generating real economic value inside the Zone.

💡 Why This Matters for Oman

The combination of the World Bank assessment (May 12) and the Omantel AI Centre launch (May 15) tells a coherent story about where Oman's AI economy stands right now. The foundation is solid. The urgency is real. And the structures needed to convert infrastructure into commercial products are being put in place, sector by sector, startup by startup.

For Oman's technology community, the most important detail is not the launch itself but the model it represents: Oman's largest telecom operator, backed by an OIA-hosted forum, committing to co-create AI products with local founders using its own live data and operational environments. If this model scales across other anchor institutions, whether banks, energy companies, or hospitals, the cumulative effect on Oman's AI ecosystem could be significant.

The five startups in this first cohort are now in an enviable position. Whether they build the next regional AI platform from inside Omantel's infrastructure remains to be seen. But the conditions being created around them are, by any measure, among the most favorable that Oman has ever offered its founders.