The GCC's Tech Vanguard: Infinite Reality's Samuel Huber

Samuel Huber boasts a storied and diverse career, starting as a Formula One engineer in the Mercedes team in the UK, before heading up a gaming studio, and then finally, becoming a tech entrepreneur who built a startup and successfully exited it in seven years, raising US$40 million along the way.

The company that he built, Landvault, is an end-to-end hosting and monetization platform for companies building immersive experiences and has over 300 clients, including Fortune 500 brands and governments across the Middle East.

Last year, Landvault, which set down roots in the UK in 2017 and established its presence in the UAE in 2023, was acquired by the US-based artificial intelligence (AI) and immersive technologies company Infinite Reality for $450 million. Today, Huber is the CEO of the Middle East arm of Infinite Reality.

For Huber, building a startup that specializes in immersive technologies and digital twins was inspired largely by his early years at the helm of a gaming studio. In fact, Landvault’s initial iteration, a company called Admix, was built to help companies monetize through in-game ads.

In 2022, after seeing the potential to expand the technology beyond gaming, the company pivoted to digital world development, leading since launching in Dubai in 2023. Huber reports a 100 percent year-on-year growth for his company, and he believes that his enterprise’s AI-powered digital twin technology can be scaled to all government entities to help accelerate training and cut costs by 400 percent.

“Digital twins and AI directly answer Dubai’s strategy for AI and immersive experiences,” he adds. “Therefore, we believe these will become must-haves in any government entity and infrastructure project. Every physical infrastructure will have its digital counterpart that can be easily updated and where running AI simulations is significantly faster and cheaper.”

As for the road ahead, Huber believes that digital twinning will continue to transform entire industries. “What excites me is despite all the progress we have made, we are still at day one of this technology, and coupled with AI, it will be ubiquitous within the next couple of years,” he says. “Additionally, the use cases are infinite, from digital twins for large infrastructure projects, to AI-powered websites for e-commerce. We are building technology that is revolutionizing how we consume content online and will be used by everybody with an internet connection.”

A Playbook For Success: Q&A With Samuel Huber 

Given the investment that GCC countries are putting into tech, what role do you think the region will play in this domain, globally, in the future? 

“I believe countries in the GCC are going to leapfrog the rest of the world due to their continuous investment in frontier technologies, favorable regulations, and long-term vision. While they cannot compete in size against the US or China, they compete by attracting top talents and being faster at implementing use cases across the private and public sectors. Over the next few years, GCC countries will be leading the pack in terms of actively using these new technologies. I am very bullish on this spirit of innovation, and this is why we are aggressively expanding across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.” 

Infinite Reality's Samuel Huber was one of the 30 innovators celebrated in Inc. Arabia's December 2024 special feature, The GCC's Tech Vanguard. For the full list of The GCC's Tech Vanguard, please click here.