The Cloud and Data Center industry is thriving in the Middle East, and W.Media recognises this. In October 2023, we held our Cloud & Datacenter Convention and Awards in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). At this exclusive day-long event, held at The Conrad Hotel, industry experts shared their ideas on a variety of subjects impacting the industry.
W.Media is also hosting another convention in Riyadh, the capital city of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on December 19, at the Hyatt Regency, Riyadh Olaya, an event where we will welcome over 100 movers and shakers of the Cloud and Data Center industry in the region.
But before that, let’s take a look back at what transpired at the Dubai CDC earlier this year.
Dubai CDC Power-panel Discussion
A power-packed panel discussion saw industry veterans like Sandeep Dandekar (Senior Director with a leading global data center) and stalwarts like Ahmed Al Hammadi (Senior Director, Data Center, e& enterprise), Sujit Nair (Director – Datacenter, Cloud & Digital Products, Moro Hub), and Stephen Beard (Global Head, Data Centers, Knight Frank) come together to discuss what kind of infrastructure needs to be deployed to deliver the digital transformation of the Middle East.
“This market always loves to adopt new technologies,” said Nair, adding, “From the adoption perspective the UAE has always been a pioneer.” He also stressed the need to focus on sustainability saying, “Because of the adoption of AI and other emerging technologies, the power requirement is also growing. Every service provider needs to have a strategy surrounding sustainability.” Nair would know, Moro Hub is a part of Digital DEWA (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority). Moro Hub enables its data centers to run on solar energy.
“Better rules and regulations need to be set around data localization, carrier neutrality, disaster recovery and business recovery aspects,” said Al Hammadi.
At this point, Dandekar weighed in and reminded everyone that the local government had always been proactive in the UAE. “Usually, it is the other way round; it is the private sector that leads the way and the government follows,” he said adding, “Here, the government takes initiative and that’s why there is a tremendous positive momentum all the time.”
Beard, building on what Nair said about sustainability previously, and said that the nature of the Request for Proposal (RFP) had changed. “Over the last three months, we have been instructed by three international data center operators to identify land parcels through a development in Dubai but the fundamental requirement is that it has to have access to 100 per cent renewable energy,” said Beard.
“It’s easy to say, go and adopt Cloud. The service provider should also have the right kind of infrastructure which can host that kind of Cloud Computing, and has the underlying ability to provide that kind of security, that kind of high density, to host high density applications and technologies,” said Nair, on the subject of infrastructure required for a digital transformation.
Al Hammadi spoke about the lack of right use cases vis-à-vis certain technologies such as Edge Computing saying, “This is important, it will help specific industries, it will bring the computing and processing closer to the source. But we have not seen enough adoption in the market.” He also spoke about immersion cooling along the same lines.