Du opens a new track for growth

Dubai: Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), the parent company of telecom operator du, has opened a new track for growth that is not in the connectivity business by unveiling a ldea Hub on Monday.

The Dubai-based operator aims to showcase strategic advanced technologies to transform the digital services landscape in the UAE.

“We believe that ICT is our biggest opportunity in the future to enhance the UAE’s position as a global hub for tourism, commerce and, more importantly, as a happy place to live,” said Osman Sultan, CEO of EITC.

Built as a semi-modular facility, the facility is designed to present the latest technologies and real-life applications from EITC to its partners.

Jihad Tayara, vice president for ICT commercial and business development at du, said that the hub focuses on smart cities, data science and platform services for the internet of things, artificial intelligence and blockchain.

“We will meet the customer, collaborate and showcase our partners’ development at the hub,” he said.

Telecom operators are licensed to offer connectivity services. On top of that, Sultan said that du can build a lot of services by partnering with other companies for smart city, hosting data services, smart home, managed services, etc.

“We plan to continue our close cooperation with our strategic partners to develop a full range of smart services and cloud solutions, providing only the best possible assistance to our customers, but also helping to drive the UAE’s innovation agenda as well as Dubai’s transformation into the smartest city in the world,” he said.

Tayara said that ICT sector has been the fastest growing space for the company.

“We have many projects ongoing from connected buildings and energy management in the IoT platform. Du is the strategic partner of Smart Dubai and we have more than 400 datasets from government organisations on Dubai Pulse platform,” he said.

According to a recent report by Ericsson, telecom operators in the UAE can capture potential revenues of $3.3 billion (Dh12.11 billion) from the digitalisation of industries with 5G technology.

According to the report, the industry growth potential in the UAE is being driven by the digitalisation of the manufacturing sector, contributing to 18 per cent of the potential revenues by 2026, followed by 16 per cent in energy and utilities, and 12.5 per cent in public safety by end of the same period.

Sukhdev Singh, vice-president at market research and analysis services provider Kantar AMRB, said that 5G will change the way information is happening when you have connected buildings, connected roads, connected cars and smart cities and catapult Dubai into a different stage.