BigBear.ai's UAE Strategy: Can Overseas Wins Boost Revenues?

BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc.’s BBAI expansion into the United Arab Emirates marks a deliberate shift from being a largely U.S.-centric defense AI contractor to a more globally positioned provider of mission-ready AI. The opening of its Abu Dhabi office in December 2025 signals a long-term commitment to the Middle East, a region investing heavily in AI-enabled border security, trade facilitation and critical infrastructure modernization.

The strategic logic is clear. The UAE sits at the crossroads of global trade, with ports, airports and border crossings that demand advanced AI for threat detection, customs efficiency and traveler processing. BigBear.ai’s early partnerships in the region, followed by its January 2026 collaboration with AD Ports Group to co-develop next-generation AI customs and border management systems, position the company directly within high-value, sovereign-led technology programs. These projects tend to be long-duration, mission-critical and less sensitive to short-term budget volatility, offering a potentially more stable revenue profile over time.

Importantly, the UAE push aligns with BigBear.ai’s broader platform strategy following the $250 million Ask Sage acquisition. Ask Sage’s secure, model-agnostic generative AI platform is already deployed at scale across regulated environments, making it well-suited for international government customers that prioritize data sovereignty and security. This combination enhances BigBear.ai’s ability to cross-sell software platforms alongside services, improving revenue scalability versus traditional services-heavy contracts.

That said, overseas wins will not translate into immediate revenue acceleration. International government sales cycles are lengthy, and near-term results will still be dominated by U.S. defense programs. However, backed by a strengthened balance sheet and reduced debt burden, BigBear.ai now has the financial flexibility to invest patiently in the UAE and broader Middle East.

Over the medium term, successful execution in the UAE could diversify revenues, reduce customer concentration risk and provide a meaningful incremental growth lever beyond the U.S. market.

BigBear.ai’s Key Peers in Government & International AI

In assessing BigBear.ai’s UAE strategy, it’s important to consider how peers with overlapping government AI and defense technology offerings are positioned globally. Palantir Technologies PLTR and C3.ai AI emerge as two relevant competitors in this context—each with distinctive strengths that may influence market dynamics in the Middle East.

Palantir Technologies leverages deep, mission-critical deployments across U.S. defense and civil governments, giving it longstanding credibility with international sovereign customers. Palantir’s existing footprint and long sales cycles in government contracts could provide it an advantage when bidding on complex, large-scale border security and customs AI projects over BigBear.ai. Palantir’s data integration platforms are often viewed as a benchmark in secure analytics, which could intensify competition for UAE and broader GCC clients.

C3.ai, meanwhile, competes on the enterprise software front with cloud-native, scalable AI applications. With a platform tailored to optimize operations across sectors, including logistics and utilities, C3.ai is positioned to appeal to UAE organizations seeking high-performance AI beyond defense, potentially challenging BigBear.ai in cross-sector opportunities.

Both Palantir Technologies and C3.ai have established international sales momentum, enhancing competitive pressure as BigBear.ai pursues its overseas expansion.

BBAI Stock’s Price Performance & Valuation Trend

Shares of this Virginia-based AI-powered decision intelligence solutions provider have trended downward by 28.9% in the past six months, underperforming the Zacks Computers - IT Services industry, the Zacks Computer and Technology sector, and the S&P 500 Index, as shown below.

BBAI’s 6-Month Price Performance

BBAI stock is currently trading at a discount compared with the industry peers, with a forward 12-month price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 12.72, as evidenced by the chart below.

BBAI’s P/S Ratio (Forward 12-Month) vs. Industry

EPS Trend of BBAI

BBAI’s bottom-line estimates for 2026 have remained unchanged at a loss per share of 25 cents over the past 60 days, indicating a year-over-year improvement, as shown below.
 

BigBear.ai stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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