How UAE’s digital backbone supercharged its economic transformation

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Jiawei Liu, CEO, Huawei UAE

Published: Wed 2 Mar 2022, 2:46 PM

The UAE’s emergence as a global trade and tourism hub would have been impossible without a parallel evolution of the country’s ICT infrastructure. By thinking ahead, the UAE’s visionary leadership has ensured that its ICT infrastructure is technologically advanced to fully support the development of its future digital economy.

By Jiawei Liu

Under its ‘Projects of the 50’, the UAE has launched the fourth Industrial revolution network and the tech drive programme to promote the adoption of advanced technologies in the industrial sector. The country aims to become a global testbed for advanced technologies and innovation. In line with this, ICT spending in the UAE is estimated to grow by eight per cent annually between now and 2024 reaching $23 billion annually, according to research firm GlobalData.

As a global actor within this ecosystem, we believe four key pillars will help solidify the UAE’s future digital economy — network modernisation, cybersecurity, digital talent, and green ICT.

To power the digital era envisioned in the UAE’s National Agenda, it starts with building expansive networks that connect every person, home, and organisation. Inclusive and high-speed broadband is vital for national industries to achieve their own digital ambitions. In our recent NetX2025 whitepaper, for example, we note how the evolution of videos services from HD to 4K, coupled with the expansion of VR and AR applications, could increase network traffic by 10 to 100 times. Meanwhile, telecom service providers must also accommodate massive automation driven by AI, while catering to enterprises’ need for multi-cloud environments. These all place demands on the network. A country’s networks therefore need to accommodate a world where bandwidth will be measured in gigabits, with telecom operators evolving the customer experience from traffic-centric planning to a service-centric model.

In addition to network modernisation, a spirit of partnership is critical to addressing one of the most pressing challenges for the digital economy – cybersecurity. Although the UAE has done remarkably well to mitigate cybercrime through its national cybersecurity strategy, we cannot afford to let our guard down, especially as cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Collaboration is vital in tackling this menace. A safer network is a shared obligation. Open collaboration between governments, industry, academia, and ICT solution providers is the only path to strengthening the UAE’s position as a globally trusted digital oasis.

A third priority for future-proofing the UAE’s digital economy is scaling its talent pool. Local universities continue to produce talented ICT practitioners that have supported the country’s economic progress. However, the demand for scenario-specific ICT solutions is accelerating. Therefore, we must continue investing in talent development to ensure that organisations have access to the qualified personnel they need to pursue their transformation goals. At Huawei, for example, we have longstanding programs such as the Huawei Middle East ICT Competition, Seeds For the Future, and ICT Academy to support the UAE in building a sustainable knowledge-based economy. These are refined each year to support local initiatives such as the National Programme for Coders and the UAE National Programme for Artificial Intelligence. 3000 young people in the UAE have benefitted from advanced skills development courses to date, equipping them with the necessary skills to lead digital transformation and development efforts in the UAE.

Underscoring these other three priorities is the adoption of green solutions within the ICT ecosystem. One must remember that the ICT industry is a considerable consumer of energy. Its priorities around sustainability can directly support the UAE’s Energy Strategy 2050 to increase the contribution of clean energy in the total energy mix from 25 per cent to 50 per cent by 2050. In the domain of data center facilities, for instance, data economy forecasts the world’s data centers could consume one-fifth of earth’s power by 2025. We can now use AI technologies to save energy and decrease the power usage effectiveness (PUE) of local data centers. In parallel, today’s digital technologies also play a critical role in reducing the carbon footprint of other industries.

According to the World Economic Forum, ICT will help reduce industrial emissions by 12.1 billion tons globally by 2030. This is ten times greater than the emissions by the ICT industry itself. Applications of AI and cloud are making a substantial impact in reducing emissions across all industries in the UAE.

Across these four pillars of the digital economy, the UAE’s potential is truly boundless. The digital economy already contributes about 4.3 per cent to the UAE's GDP. Consulting firm BCG has also ranked the UAE third globally for governments providing digital services. By investing in network modernisation, cybersecurity, digital talent, and green ICT, the UAE will accelerate its progress as a global leader in the digital era.