Steven Yi, President of Huawei Middle East, highlighted Huawei’s commitment to support governments across the region achieve their digital transformation visions with 5G networks and other advanced technologies as an enabler. This took place during an exclusive media roundtable from Pakistan and 9 other Middle East countries held on the sidelines of the SAMENA Leaders’ Summit 2022, the top telecom industry event hosted by Huawei for the 9th consecutive year and attended by indsutry leaders, experts and decision makers from telecom companies, regulatory bodies, industry organizations and related stakeholders from SAMENA Region (South Asia, Middle East North Africa).
Steven Yi stressed that in Pakistan, Huawei works with local customers, businesses, and partners to improve local network connectivity and improve the quality of life for the people. Yi also highlighted the importance of the telecom sector as an enabler for other industries’ sustainable development and growth in light of the evolving 5G landscape and the immense opportunities for enterprises in the 5G era. Yi also noted that Huawei, together with carriers and partners, has signed 3,000 5G commercial contracts, and that 5G saw large-scale commercial deployment in many industries, including manufacturing, mining, steel, port, chemical, cement, power grid, and healthcare. “Middle East countries are leading globally in 5G deployment. As an end-to-end leader in 5G, cloud, AI, devices and chips, Huawei will continue its commitment to help countries in the Middle East achieve their visions with digitization and sustainable development as key drivers. Yi highlighted.
Additionally, during the Summit, leading regional operators and Huawei launched IntelligentRAN, an advanced telecom network solution, which comes in line with Huawei’s objective to empower the telecommunication sector with more advanced innovations and value for its own business and other sectors and industries businesses by means of injecting intelligent to wireless networks and achieve autonomous driving network in the wireless domain in the future. “The intelligentRAN architecture is constructed to develop a mobile network with intelligent service operation, intelligent network optimization, and simplified O&M. This feature helps customers and partners quickly provision services and guarantee user experience, maximize user experience, reduce energy consumption, and simplify O&M in multi-frequency and multi-mode scenarios.”
With digital technologies advancing rapidly, securing networks and cybersecurity continues to be Huawei’s top priority. “We have a sound cybersecurity and privacy protection assurance structure which has a leading global records.” Steven Yi said. “Our practices in cybersecurity have won the continuous trust of our partners including those in the Middle East. We believe that cyber security is a shared responsibility and it’s crucial to have an open discussion around cybersecurity governance architecture in line of international standards like 3GPP, GSMA NESAS and others. Last year, we unveiled the largest cybersecurity and transparency center around the world in Dongguan China, and we hope that we will be able to invite you to visit there after the pandemic to experience this open collaboration platform targeted at addressing cybersecurity challenges and come up with joint innovations for improving the future of cybersecurity.” Yi continued.
Steven Yi also stressed on Huawei’s commitment to support building digital economies in the Middle East region “We need to be united to establish unified laws and regulations so that the digital economy can be protected.”
“Huawei has worked with customers to deploy 5G technology and hope to see more use cases of 5G in vertical industries in the Middle East region. We are committed to openly collaborate with our customers and partners and extend our innovations and global expertise to the region players for achiving more value in 5G deployement, in-line with the ME countries socio- economic growth.” Yi said.
“In terms of R&D, we will continue to invest heavily to serve our smart and intelligent future. In 2021, We invested over 22% of annual revenue in R&D targeted at supporting the long-term sustainable development of the ICT industry, we will continue to invest significantly in intelligent solutions and services such as ICT infrastructure and cloud services.” Yi added.
But focusing and expanding the digital space comes with its own concerns over energy consumption, therefore, Huawei has made sustainability as a priority to achieve a low-carbon society through continuous technological innovation. “In the Middle East, Huawei Digital Energy is working with industry partners to develop the digital energy industry, building a low-carbon telecom sector, homes, factors, parks and smart cities, and moving from a low-carbon society to a zero-carbon one.” At the moment, over 100 operators from across the world have deployed Huawei’s low-carbon solutions, reducing carbon emissions by 40 million tons.
On talent development, Huawei’s long-term strategy in the MEA region is aimed at developing ICT knowledge for various markets by leveraging their strengths in advanced technologies. “In the digital economy era, digital talent will be the key to digital transformation and economic growth.” Huawei has committed to develop over 100,000 ICT talents in the Middle East in the next 5 years. In the Middle East, we have set up 154 Huawei ICT academies, and over 3,000 students have participated in the flagship program Seeds for the Future, and more than 17,000 students have obtained a Huawei certification.
“Huawei is committed to cultivating innovative talents for higher and vocational colleges, accelerating innovation in teaching, research, and narrowing the digital divide, and promoting balanced education development in basic education” Yi added.
Steven Yi also highlighted that Huawei is committed to use its global knowledge and expertise in over 170 markets and in mega projects such as the 2018 World Cup in Russia and 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to the benefit of the Middle East region mega events, including successfully guaranteeing Saudi Arabia’s Hajj network for 16 years, accident free and offering unprecendnted experiences to the upcoming 2022 Qatar World Cup. “We remain committed to collaborate with our suppliers and partners to provide customized, secure, reliable, stable and competitive solutions to our customers in the Middle East Region.” Yi concluded.
