Gulf Business quotes Gareth Mills on Bahrain and Qatar’s diverging paths on data sovereignty and what businesses need to know
Bahrain and Qatar are both actively building the region’s digital future but they do so from different starting points...
As Gulf states race to become digital hubs, two neighbours are carving very different approaches to data governance. Bahrain has invested in cloud and data-centre capacity and adopted a pragmatic, adequacy-style model for cross-border flows. Qatar is pursuing a centralised, sovereignty-first playbook—backed by a GDPR-style law, a state-led cloud framework and big infrastructure bets. Both trajectories create real commercial opportunities, but they also reshape compliance, cloud strategy and operational resilience for any firm doing business in the region.
Gareth Mills, Partner, who advises clients on data, cloud outsourcing and cross-border transfers across the Gulf shares his take with Gulf Business.
He outlines why the two countries differ, where the enforcement risks lie, how banks and telcos should think about hosting and cloud, and what firms should do now to stay compliant and resilient.
Qatar is positioning itself as a leader in digital sovereignty and regulatory readiness through a deliberate, top-down strategy. This is primarily driven by the Qatar National Vision 2030 and the National Digital Agenda 2030 (NDA2030).
Read the full piece in Gulf Business here.
