Invest in tech for green, say experts at Huawei

Businesses that are well underway in their digital transformation journeys must also ensure that they have a roadmap that is focused on reducing their carbon footprint, experts at Huawei said.

Speaking to Khaleej Times during their participation at Gitex Technology Week 2021, Alaa Elshimy, MD & SVP of Enterprise Business Group at Huawei Middle East, explained that digital transformation has accelerated to the point where it is now present across all industries and sectors, irrespective of whether they were traditionally seen as having a digital presence or not. “Banking, education, logistics, telecoms, and airlines all require different intelligent applications for different purposes.”

As a ‘Platinum Partner’ to this year’s Gitex Global, Huawei is showcasing the application of emerging technologies across national economies and different vertical industries. Under the theme of ‘Dive into Digital’, Huawei is also spotlighting various regional and global case studies of how these solutions are helping governments and enterprises capture the opportunities of a post-pandemic recovery by being more efficient, versatile, and resilient.

Elshimy also explained that Huawei is very keen to showcase its green ICT solutions and how they will drive industries to conserve energy, reduce emissions, and build an environmentally friendly low-carbon society that saves resources.

“We are introducing digital energy for the first time ever at Gitex this year,” he said. “Basically, we are combining the technology of green energy with ICT. We know that reducing the carbon footprint of an organisation is becoming a huge challenge for many companies, and we feel that we have a lot of data and insights that we can share on this. Huawei managed to reduce emissions by 33 per cent from the level that we were at in 2012, and we are keen to highlight our success and share best practices with other organisations that are also interested in doing so.”

Asked what advice he would give organisations at that stage in their journey, he said: “I would advise them to have a clear strategy ready and to start with a clear use case. Once you have a pilot that is successful, expand it to the rest of the organisation. Technology is here to help people become greener.”

He added that the UAE is actually very well positioned to make the most of the green energy revolution. The leadership of the country has not only set targets for reducing emissions, but has also launched various initiatives that are driving the change towards more sustainability. “The move towards green energy will accelerate and be supported by the growth of various technologies such as 5G globally.”

Yang Chaobin, president of Huawei Wireless Solution, noted that 5G capabilities will continue to evolve to incorporate fragmented connections in various industries, creating an IoT space with hundreds of billions of connections.

“As 5G commercial deployment enters a new phase, users need more continuous experience, and industry digitalisation poses new requirements on 5G capabilities,” he said. “Therefore, we believe that the next step is to evolve 5G from hotspot to all-scenario continuous coverage, from Gbps to 5Gigaverse, and from pilot industry to all-industry digitalisation, to build a ubiquitous gigabit network and a 5Gigaverse society.”

It is expected that by 2030, mobile networks will carry more traffic than wired networks and become the main bearer of Internet traffic.

“Innovation will never stop,” Chaobin added. “The next decade will be a decade of 5G. 5G will continue to evolve and innovate toward 5.5G. We hope to work with global partners to continuously innovate based on user experience and industry requirements to take user experience to new heights while digitally transforming industries.”

rohma@khaleejtimes.com