Huawei—a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider—outlined its vision to support the development of Smart Cities in the Middle East at the Arab Future Cities Summit which took place in Doha, Qatar, this week.
Huawei was the Smart ICT Partner of the Arab Future Cities Summit which is the Middle East’s premier smart cities event. In its 3rd year, the summit has attracted over 300 senior level executives to discuss the progress and future requirements for constructing smart cities across the Middle East.
Pan En, Vice President of Middle East Region, Huawei, shared the ICT company’s view that the world is becoming increasingly city-centric and that the cities of the future need to become more intelligent through connected infrastructure.
A key player in the region’s smart city initiative, Huawei’s belief is that more intelligent cities will radically improve the quality of life of citizens and businesses, transforming the way they experience the world. The foundation of these intelligent and connected cities lies with the fast and universal access to broadband services.
In validation of Huawei’s vision for Smart Cities, the World Bank recently released a report outlining that an investment of $25 billion is needed in order to fully develop fixed and wireless internet access in the Arab world .
“As urbanization accelerates, information and communications technologies are playing a more significant role in improving public services and quality of people’s lives. The Qatar government is one of the leaders in the region that is ramping up its broadband infrastructure to meet the anticipated demands of residents, for easy-to-use, secure and reliable digital applications”
According to Huawei, telecoms operators are also playing a vital role in the planning of smart cities as most projects will have the same technical requirements in the construction of an ICT network; providing a more robust fiber network, pursuit of mobile-broadband capabilities and pursuing these in an environmentally conscious way.
The global ICT solutions provider has worked with governments across the region and around the world to deploy a vast range of Smart City solutions for governments that want to cross the digital frontier. This included broadband infrastructure and communications to niche industry applications and data center technologies. The deployment of these solutions are ICT enablers to address city challenges and offer time efficient and cost effective system with advanced intelligence and diversified services.
“Whether driven by government, telecom operators or other stakeholders, we believe smart city practices share the same ultimate objective of efficiently servicing the public with information. As a key player in the region’s smart city initiatives, Huawei has an ongoing commitment to provide ICT technologies to Qatar as it looks to become one of the world’s most connected and sustainable smart cities,” concluded Pan.
The next-generation information superhighways are seen in the form of National broadband networks (NBN) and represent a vital investment in both national competitiveness and security.
To date, Huawei has been involved in network infrastructure development in more than 100 Smart City projects globally, with 12 national broadband projects and over 10 e-government and data center development projects.
