MCIT partners with Huawei to launch the Kingdom’s first Internet of Things Lab and fund for entrepreneurs in Huawei Day

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) today partnered with Huawei to announce the launch of the Kingdom’s first Internet of Things (IoT) Lab and a fund of one million US dollars to support Saudi entrepreneurs. The announcement was made at Huawei Day 2018 held in the Ritz Carlton in the presence of Dr. Sulaiman Mirdad, Minister’s advisor for IT Industry Development, Dennis Zhang, CEO of Huawei KSA, and other representatives from senior government officials, enterprises IT Leaders and professionals.

The new lab will be located at Huawei’s innovation center in Riyadh and will serve entrepreneurs as a platform to innovate IoT applications which will directly target the most important vertical sectors to the Kingdom. This joint initiative between MCIT and Huawei will boost the development of products and applications and promote an open and participatory IoT ecosystem. The new IoT Lab is the first such innovation and development joint lab in Saudi Arabia. Under this cooperation, Huawei have also made available one million dollars of funding to developers to accelerate the adoption of IoT in the Kingdom.

IoT development and innovation have transformed traditional industries and daily life. As hundreds of millions of IoT devices will be used for innovative services, the technology has a key role to play in digitalization across industries. Yet currently there is not much adoption IoT in Saudi Arabia, and there is a shortage in local skills and funding necessary to drive forward the sector. The Lab is intended to bridge this gap, and ultimately to drive forward the Kingdom’s digital transformation and assist the leadership in achieving their vision of building a knowledge economy, in line with Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Plan 2020.

Dr. Ahmed Altheneyan, Deputy Minister for Technology and Digital Capacities at MCIT, commented:“We are proud to launch the Kingdom’s first IoT Lab and fund with our partner Huawei, believing as we do that this initiative will help to promote ICT innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, accelerate the adoption of emerging technology within the Kingdom, and support the in developing the skillset and technology necessary to enable our vision and national transformation plan. We are grateful to Huawei for its great contribution to support the digital transformation and the development of the ICT talent ecosystem in the Kingdom, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration and partnership.”

Mr. Dennis Zhang, Chief Executive Officer at Huawei KSA, added: “Saudi Vision 2030 calls for the development of the Kingdom into an innovative and globally-competitive economy through digital transformation, and our aim at Huawei is to support the success of this vision. We are committed to open innovation and collaboration to promote the IoT sector here in Saudi Arabia and we see the launch of this lab as another milestone in our strategic partnership with MCIT. We hope the space we have created together will further strengthen our complete ecosystem of partners, manufacturers, technicians, developers and designers to bring the best IoT solutions to the Kingdom.”