Global Internet of Things leaders hail Dubai’s Smart City progress

Dubai / WAM

A gathering of global technology leaders at this week’s Internet of Things Expo (IoTX) at Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) believe a combination of hyper connectivity, supercomputing, cloud computing, smart technologies and cyber security will make the Internet of Things (IoT) sector the single largest market opportunity for global businesses by the turn of the decade.
“IoT is a great blue ocean of opportunity and we’re only just starting to explore it. We expect global IoT spend to reach US$2 trillion by 2020,” said Anastasia Ribbing Kristoffers, a Senior Managing Consultant for Huawei Technologies, who earmarked healthcare, education, energy and utilities, transport and smart cities as the core industries driving IoT growth.
With two billion smartphones currently being used worldwide and 217 new internet users every minute, global IoT growth will see 50 billion physical objects connected to the internet by 2020. Kristoffers revealed Huweai expects the number of connected devices to hit 100 billion by 2025.
When it does, the explosion in data will generate vast capacity for analytics-driven solutions to interpret, monetise and, vitally, secure the information. “IoT data is like oil – it is very valuable but if you spill it, it’s dangerous,” added Kristoffers.
At present, technology solutions companies such as Huawei are working with device, service and application providers as well as standards bodies to build an IoT ecosystem to support the impending growth in connected devices and data. Public-private partnerships will be the key to exploiting opportunities – especially in the transformation of smart cities – believes Irfan Khan, Chief Technology Officer, SAP Global Customer Operations, a speaker at IoTX.
“Dubai is already a global Smart City leader and the emirate can further drive innovation by localising global best practices such as the smart and connected 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, Barcelona’s mobile tourism app and Buenos Aires’ natural disaster management,” said Khan. “SAP is committed to driving the public-private-academic partnerships that support the region’s government-led Smart City innovation to help cities run better, enhance daily lives and upskill local talent.”
Encompassing a two-day conference spanning core IoT touchpoints including global digitisation, wearables, security and risk, robotics, applications and the penetration of solutions and services across multiple industrial sectors, IoTX featured more than 20
expert-led sessions.
A core component of DWTC’s Future Technology Week – a new umbrella identity collecting Gulf Information Security Expo & Conference (GISEC), The Big Data Show and GEMEC – IoTX includes a three-day exhibition ending on Thursday that has attracted a high-profile contingent of the world’s leading technology companies and Future Technology Week runs until March 31 at DWTC.

‘ME firms can accelerate IoT Innovations’
Dubai / WAM

Middle East organizations can accelerate Internet of Things (IoT) innovations and fuel the region’s USD 240 billion IT market, thanks to a new UAE-based, world-class private cloud data center-based service by Injazat Data Systems and SAP, the organizations announced on Wednesday at IoTX 2016.
With over 50 billion things becoming connected to networks by 2030, the global Internet of Things market is set to reach USD 14.4 trillion by 2022, according to SAP.
Demonstrating the strong Middle East opportunity potential, regional IT spend will reach USD 242 billion in 2019, with software services at USD 6.1 billion, growth of 42 percent from 2015, according to Gartner.
“For the Middle East’s Internet of Things-fuelled Smart Cities and hyper-connected mega-events, organizations need real-time insights to simplify operations, gain new customer and citizen insights, and drive digital transformation. The UAE is an emerging player in cloud adoption, and is sharing global best practices to support the Middle East’s digital innovation agenda,” said Ibrahim Lari, CEO, Injazat Data Systems.
Injazat Data Systems, wholly owned by Mubadala Development Company, launched its UAE private cloud data center with SAP in October 2015, and is currently engaging with the first customer. The data center is designed to world-class standards to host SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud solutions.
Organizations across the Middle East and North Africa can use the secure SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud platform to run, in real-time, any SAP application on the cloud.
These applications include enterprise resource planning, the next generation business suite SAP S/4HANA, Big Data and analytics, data storage, mobile apps, customer relationship management, and financials.
“Rapid cloud adoption is helping high-growth Middle East industries, from healthcare to sport, to leapfrog their European counterparts in saving costs, becoming more agile, and capturing the strong, evolving Internet of Things opportunity. Injazat’s UAE-based high availability Tier IV data center is delivering globally-recognized SAP cloud solutions to support the Middle East’s business innovation,” said Tayfun Topko?, Managing Director, SAP UAE.
With the rapid take-up of cloud solutions requiring advanced technology skills, SAP is supporting the region’s workforce of the future. The SAP Training and Development Institute has partnered with more than 125 universities to train over 17,400 students, launched the Startup Focus program to incubate nine startups, and generated USD 91 million in MENA skills and knowledge since 2012.