In an exclusive interview during the Telecom Review Leaders’ Summit 2023, Abou Mustafa, Head of LE, Government and Key Accounts Segment at du, talks about the company’s various initiatives to take the UAE to the forefront of global connectivity.
How is du supporting enterprise digital transformation?
Digital transformation spending will accelerate in the META region at a rate of 16% CAGR over five years, topping USD 74 billion in 2026 as per IDC. The cloud will add USD 181 billion to the UAE economy over the coming 10 years. Artificial Intelligence will contribute USD 96 billion US dollars to the UAE GDP in 2030. Spending on IoT in the UAE this year will reach USD 3.2 billion. It's a massive spending opportunity when it comes to disruptive technology.
In du’s mission to make it simple to accelerate transformation and optimize operations for the enterprise as well as government entities, it's about understanding the opportunities and the challenges for each industry. This is a value addition that du can provide to our clients in the enterprise. It is not one size fits all. We believe in verticalization. For example, we enable logistics. One of the largest data warehouses in Jebel Ali is to be fully automated using robotics cars for uplifting and optimization.
Another example in education— we have integrated augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to increase engagement in virtual classrooms. As well as in finance, which is now fully empowered with digital banking; meaning hundreds and thousands of data points can be captured to provide precise targeted products to the clients and increase the conversion rate by providing the right product at the right time. All these examples are different in nature but at the center it’s the same— high-performance computing and networking is crucial to create a digital ecosystem that du can provide to its customers.
How is du enabling digital transformation in the government sector? Are you seeing the same trends and demands?
There is a real commitment when it comes to the UAE government regarding the digital transformation. The digital economy in the UAE is expected to reach USD 140 billion in 2031, increasing from the present USD 38 billion as per the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy.
One of the main digital objectives of the UAE government in Dubai is to make Dubai the happiest and the most preferred destination for both businesses and tourists. This can be achieved by connecting thousands and millions of attributes across the cities, to understand the city’s behavior, to make all the residents and visitors happy. This cannot be achieved without high-powered low latency, an IoT interconnected ecosystem, massive data lakes and a massive computing data amount at the edge.
At the same time, sustainability is one of the strategic objectives in the government's agenda. 5G mobile private networks can enable and support smarter buildings to manage energy-efficiency to achieve their sustainability objectives. At the same time, the government is pushing SD-WAN to gain the maximum efficiency from the interconnection in a secure way. The government is not only enabling certain initiatives but is also setting up proper governance regulations to support the agenda. For example, the Dubai Municipality recently announced the mapping of the full airspace of Dubai to define new routes and landing destinations for drones.
As we speak, Dubai Silicon Oasis is experimenting with drone deployments to benefit citizens. For example, pharmaceuticals can be delivered to elderly people in the city, used for inspection in mining or oil and gas, as well as in logistics or warehouses. It is also massively driven by the UAE’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) exchange that enables domestic transactions as well as cross-border payments. This digital transformation agenda and ambition cannot be achieved without the government’s clear and serious strategic view and vision.
Can du extend their support for global digital transformation delivery?
We started our mission to support digital transformation on a global scale 11 to 12 years ago by launching Data MENA— a carrier-neutral data hub as a new implementation in the region. Now, we have more than 205 partners who are ready to provide and exchange their services from wide-ranging sectors such as OTTs to CDNs to Cloud players as well as enterprises and carriers.
We have AAAs for global cloud service providers— Amazon Web Services, Azure Microsoft as well as Alibaba, Oracle Cloud, SAP cloud, Netflix, META, and Akamai for CDN and online gaming— all of them use Data MENA to serve the entire region and globally. We expanded Data MENA by partnering with DE-CIX, extending connectivity to more than 300 cities to empower the UAE Internet Exchange (UAE-IX). The UAE-IX is now a leading regional Internet exchange, achieving 600 gigabits per second in traffic peak; and very soon we will see Tier 3 dimensions on this neutral Internet traffic exchange platform. The integration and interconnection with the Etisalat SmartHub will propel UAE-IX to the next level, marking the first implementation of its kind in the region under the supervision of TDRA.
Moreover, all the clients in Data MENA can also reach over 250 data centers, globally, spanning more than 50 locations across various markets in the region and across the globe through Equinix Fabric, which is interconnected to the entire globe. This integrated and cohesive platform can enable all the clients to expand globally at any point in time as well as encourage other clients to come and operate and serve the region from Data MENA. This is our mission and vision and our commitment to propel the region to the next global level, and I think we are doing a great job, and we're still at the beginning of the journey— and there is more to come.
