The Middle East’s health systems are building the ‘digital rails’ that let cancer care learn, predict, and act. Over the last few years, regional governments, large hospital networks, and AI vendors have turned pilot projects into region-wide programs. This is an accelerating shift from isolated point solutions to scalable screening programs, cloud-enabled diagnostics, and AI-enabled decision support. This trend provides a clear set of commercial opportunities.
The region is investing heavily in AI infrastructure (data centers, cloud & models), creating both demand for AI clinical tools and opportunity for localized solutions. Pharma and AI vendor collaborations for early-detection and population screening are demonstrating scale (millions of scans) and offering a pathway to value-based contracts with payers.
The Middle East AI in oncology market stood at $111.33 million in 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 22% from 2025 to 2033. Supported by the growing interest in preventative care strategies, healthcare expenditure is predicted to reach $135.5 billion by 2027 in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. According to PwC, AI could contribute $320 billion to Middle East economies by 2030.
How AI is Helping
- Population screening and imaging triage: AI models that read mammograms, chest X-rays and CTs are being integrated into national and large-network screening workflows. These solutions triage high-risk findings to radiologists and reduce backlog, a direct ROI lever for hospitals and national screening programs. It simply means faster throughput, fewer missed early cancers, and lower downstream costs. In March 2025, Lunit, a leading provider of AI-powered solutions for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, announced an agreement with Cloud Solutions to supply its AI-powered chest X-ray analysis solution, Lunit INSIGHT CXR. Cloud Solutions is a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s largest medical organization, HMG.
- Early-detection partnerships: Pharma and AI collaborations are turning screening into measurable programs. AstraZeneca’s work with Qure.ai achieved 5 million AI-enabled chest X-rays globally in 2025, including implementation models applicable to Middle East screening programs. Such volume projects give commercial proof points for AI triage and create partnership models that pharma can sponsor or fund as part of prevention strategies. For health systems, these partnerships reduce per-scan cost and fund outreach.
- Clinical decision support and treatment planning: Beyond detection, AI tools that assist tumor-board decisions, such as biomarker interpretation, imaging quantification, and survival modelling, are being piloted in major centres. Academic and industry reviews show AI’s role in therapy decision-making is growing but requires careful governance and clinician oversight. These tools create procurement opportunities around software licences, integration, validation, and clinician training.
- Enabling commercialization: Strategic national investments in AI capacity (data centres, local LLMs, R&D hubs) reduce regulatory friction and lower latency for cloud-based clinical AI. Recent moves, like large AI data center projects and new state-backed AI companies, have strengthened the region’s ability to host medical AI locally, which vendors can leverage for sovereign cloud offerings and region-specific model tuning. For example, in May 2025, OpenAI announced it would partner with the UAE to build a massive data center as part of the company’s OpenAI for Countries push.
The Bottom Line The Middle East is laying down the blueprint for how emerging markets can leapfrog into next-generation cancer care. Multi-year national screening programs, pharma–AI alliances, and sovereign infrastructure investments are moving this market from experimental pilots to large-scale. For businesses, this is the window to position solutions not as “add-ons” but as integral enablers of oncology outcomes. As AI proves its value in oncology, adoption will spill over into adjacent therapeutic areas.
