Building Middle East’s digital economy

Across the Middle East, as governments are actively diversifying their economies, more and more emphasis is being laid on wide-ranging digital transformation across various industries. Driven by national visions and ICT goals, the public and private sectors have made great strides in building a robust digital infrastructure that empowers innovation and unlocks new economic opportunities. The seeds of the Middle East’s digital economy were sown much earlier given the incredible foresight of the regional governments, and the pandemic simply accelerated the progress.

Fast-forwarding digital transformation
The pandemic has had a significant impact on global economic and social development and has prompted industries to speed up their digital transformation and reshape their business models. According to IDC, by 2022, 70 per cent of organisations will accelerate the adoption of digital technology like AI to transform their business processes.

This digitalisation is happening across all sectors. For instance, the financial services industry is rapidly moving towards digital banking. The transportation industry is looking for ways to enable smoother traffic powered by ICT. The energy industry is shifting focus from resources to technologies.

Digital transformation is also entering a new stage of intelligence. Huawei estimates that by 2025, 97 per cent of all large enterprises will use AI, and AI will power 77 per cent of all cloud applications.

In short, over the next decade, technological innovation will be critical for industrial development.

A value-driven model for industrial digitalisation
Three basic principles must be followed during digital transformation. First, companies must continue to be customer-centric, which is the starting point of digital transformation. Secondly, they must seize two key factors: the convergence of technologies and scenarios is the key to digitalisation, while cloud is critical to continuous optimisation and value creation in the digital era. Thirdly, businesses should focus on customer requirements to build a symbiotic and shared digital ecosystem from three dimensions: scenario exploration, capacity building, and a cooperation model to jointly create new value for industries.

Collaborate with customers to create new value in the industry
At Huawei, we are innovating in two areas – technology and scenario-based solutions – to help our customers in all industries go digital.

For example, by integrating cloud and AI technologies with power grid inspection, workers no longer need to risk their lives by climbing tall towers. Meanwhile, residents have a more secure, reliable, and stable source of electricity. Similarly, in the education sector, with cloud-based solutions, all people, environments, objects, and academic and cultural activities in campuses are being digitalised and mirrored on the cloud, allowing for digital integrations in teaching, scientific research, and management.

On the technology side, Huawei is innovating in areas like smart campuses, deterministic networks, hyper-integrated data centres, smart clouds, and green energy to lay the foundation for an intelligent future.

As countries across the Middle East are building their digital economies, ICT providers need to collaborate closely with their customers in both the public and private sectors to truly understand their businesses and challenges. Technology solutions should then be tailored specifically to individual scenarios to create new value for regional businesses. At Huawei, we work with our ecosystem partners to innovate together and we believe this is integral to our joint successes.

The Middle East represents a strong market for Huawei globally. We are working with leading regional organisations across various industries like transportation, financial services, education and with local governments to develop and deploy new digital solutions that will not only promote the development of the digital economy, but also improve people’s quality of life.

David Shi is the president of the Enterprise Business Group at Huawei Middle East