PULSE · Saturday, July 4, 2026

Daily GCC briefing.

Chinese AI closes the gap, MENA funding rebounds, and GCC profits hit record highs

AI Funding Security DevTools Business

TODAY'S STORIES

5 stories for today.

Chinese AI model matches OpenAI and Anthropic at a fraction of the cost

A new inexpensive Chinese open-weight AI model is closing the performance gap with leading Western models. US AI czar David Sacks acknowledged the Chinese model rivals current offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic, as Anthropic faces domestic curbs and OpenAI delays its GPT-5.6 rollout.

Funding Wamda

MENA startups raise $454.7M in May as debt financing dominates

MENA startups raised $454.7 million across 33 deals in May 2026, a 202% month-on-month increase and 76% year-on-year rise. However, deal count fell by 57%, signaling fewer but larger bets. Debt financing remained the dominant instrument, with approximately $1.5 billion raised year-to-date.

Security Computer Weekly

UAE launches national cryptography platform for post-quantum transition

The UAE Cyber Security Council partnered with ATRC to launch a national cryptography discovery platform, accelerating the country's migration to post-quantum encryption. The Middle East cybersecurity market is projected to reach $29.4 billion by 2031, growing at 9.6% CAGR.

DevTools Apple Developer

Apple ships agentic coding in Xcode 26.3 with Claude and Codex integration

Apple's Xcode 26.3 brings native agentic coding support, integrating Anthropic's Claude Agent and OpenAI's Codex directly into the IDE. Developers can now leverage AI agents for multi-step tasks like refactoring across files, generating tests, and building features — all within Xcode's coding assistant.

Business Kamco Invest

GCC banks post $16.8B net profit in Q1 2026 as corporate earnings hit records

GCC corporate net profits hit a new quarterly record in Q1 2026, rising 15.5% year-on-year, driven by energy, F&B, and banking sectors. GCC banks alone posted $16.8 billion in net profit, with net interest income reaching a record $24.4 billion. Saudi Arabia's market opening to all foreign investors continues to attract inflows.

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Pulse is Sabbk's daily intelligence brief for decision-makers across the Gulf. Every morning, we surface the stories that matter — AI breakthroughs, funding rounds, security alerts, market shifts, and dev tools reshaping how the region builds.

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