As a co-host of the 2024 ITU CxO meeting, Telecom Review conducted an exclusive interview with du CTO, Saleem Alblooshi, a key figure driving innovation in 5G, AI, and next-generation digital infrastructure in the UAE.
Alblooshi explored how du is shaping the digital landscape in the UAE and beyond, and discussed the challenges and opportunities in monetizing 5G infrastructure, the role of AI in advancing network efficiency and sustainability, and du’s pivotal participation in global initiatives.
du has been instrumental in driving 5G and AI innovation. How do you see 5G and AI-enabled use cases shaping the digital transformation journey towards 6G in the UAE and beyond?
From a strategic perspective, du's core pillars focus on network modernization, enhancing customer experience excellence, driving network efficiency and quality, ensuring security, and promoting sustainability.
These five strategic pillars are designed to maximize value creation, position du as an industry leader, and strengthen our country’s leadership on a global scale. AI serves as a critical enabler across all these areas. By leveraging AI frameworks and capabilities, we optimize infrastructure deployment, enabling faster, more cost-effective, and quality-driven network rollouts.
AI is a fundamental element driving our network advancement and customer experience transformation. It helps us manage customer touchpoints efficiently using AI and generative AI (GenAI) capabilities, while also improving overall operational efficiency and reducing both the cost per gigabyte and infrastructure deployment expenses.
AI also plays a vital role in our security frameworks. Security is fundamental to our strategy, ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and customer privacy.
From a sustainability perspective, we are using AI to drive the efficient utilization of power in our infrastructure and correlating power consumption with traffic trends.
Given du's strategic focus on infrastructure expansion, such as data centers and fiber footprint, what are the main challenges and opportunities in aligning these efforts with national initiatives?
From infrastructure rollout to modernization, du is driving the UAE’s leadership vision to position the country as number one in global infrastructure. Our efforts are aligned with this national agenda to achieve and sustain leadership in this domain.
In terms of 5G, we have deployed the latest infrastructure and are now advancing to 5G-Advanced nationwide. With our 5G network already achieving 99% coverage, our current focus is on expanding and enhancing this infrastructure to deliver 5G-Advanced capabilities across the UAE. Simultaneously, we are accelerating the rollout of fiber infrastructure.
Fiber is a critical enabler for advancing capabilities across fixed networks, mobile infrastructure, and data center connectivity. Whether it be building a nationwide fiber backbone or addressing last-mile and international connectivity, we are prioritizing accelerated deployment and investment in fiber optics.
Recognizing the rapid growth in AI, digitalization, and the increasing demand for data centers, we are making significant investments to build state-of-the-art data centers across multiple regions in the UAE. These data centers are equipped with the latest technologies that support the country’s sustainability agenda while delivering exceptional customer experiences.
The UAE is globally recognized for its advanced infrastructure, particularly in telecom, where we are ranked number one in the world. At du, we remain committed to maintaining and strengthening this leadership position through continuous innovation, investment, and excellence.
As a co-host of the ITU CxO meeting, how does du plan to leverage this collaboration to influence global telecom policies and advance regional digital inclusion efforts? What is du's strategic direction for 2025?
Active participation in international standards development and governance of infrastructure is key in providing advanced services to our customers.
Alignment with all key stakeholders—regulators, operators, and technology manufacturers—is the foundation for success in the telecom industry. At du, we recognize the importance of collaboration and are actively engaging with leading global standardization bodies, including the ITU, 3GPP, GSMA, and several other organizations.
A prime example of our leadership in this space is our contribution to the development of 6G standards. Working alongside our regulator, technology vendors, and other operators as part of the 6G Task Force, du played an instrumental role in defining the UAE’s vision for 6G. This collaboration led to the publication of the first whitepaper outlining the national agenda for 6G deployment.
Thus, it is fundamental to participate and encourage engagement in such international initiatives. The value it brings is the differentiator between the telecom industry and the many other industries that work without standards or specific features and capabilities that are not interoperable.
With du's recent advancements in 5G monetization and enterprise solutions, what emerging technologies or partnerships do you foresee as critical to sustaining this momentum in the Middle East region?
As highlighted, we have developed the latest and most advanced infrastructure in the UAE, and today, we are leading the deployment of 5G-Advanced, covering entire cities with its cutting-edge capabilities. This progress has been made possible thanks to the support of our regulator, TDRA, particularly in the allocation of spectrum, which has accelerated the advancement of our infrastructure rollout.
In order to ensure the proper monetization of this infrastructure, we have to work and collaborate with several ecosystem players and develop use cases that ensure the utilization of these capabilities, creating the best value for the people in the country; whether it be for the residents, for trade, or for social communication.
There's no individual entity or vertical that can drive this ecosystem. Therefore, we are partnering with our vendor ecosystem, including Nokia, Huawei, Ericsson, Microsoft, Oracle, and others. We are also partnering with international regulatory and standardization entities, such as the UAE’s regulator (TDRA), the ITU, 3GPP, ETSI, and other organizations that develop standards.
On the other hand, we are also engaging with our customers to identify which use cases are creating value for them, in order to ensure that we build end-to-end technology that maximizes value for our customers.
du at TRS-24:
du’s Bold AI-Centric Vision for Network Transformation Impresses at TRS-24
TRS-24 Fireside Chat with du: Empowering the Next Generation of Innovative Leaders
