Huawei launches cloud services hub in Saudi Arabia

Chinese tech giant Huawei has unveiled the Huawei Cloud Riyadh Region data centre in Saudi Arabia, which will serve the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

The data centre will provide full stack cloud services, including infrastructure, databases, containers, big data and AI services through a 3AZ (availability zone) architecture. It will store data locally in line with local data regulations, and Huawei says in total 68 cloud services will be made available across data, AI, and cloud-native categories.

It will utilize the Pangu 3.0 model, which apparently ‘addresses AI adoption challenges, leveraging industry insights to enhance AI capabilities across sectors like finance, government, manufacturing, and more.’

It is also set up to help Chinese businesses enter the Saudi region and ‘enhance partnerships with local stakeholders’ under something called the Saudi Arabia Go Cloud Go Global plan.

Huawei also says it will train 200,000 developers in Saudi Arabia in the next five years, build joint solutions with 1,000 local partners, and help 2,000 startups grow.

“Huawei Cloud aims high, aims global and aims here in Saudi Arabia,” said Jacqueline Shi, President of Huawei Cloud Global Marketing and Sales Service. “Saudi Arabia Region will be our focus in serving the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, providing innovative, reliable, secure, and sustainable cloud services. We hope to create a better choice for advancing intelligence. This cloud gives you more choices to stay innovative, inclusive, and open.  This cloud will help you succeed in the digital and intelligent era. This cloud is for everyone.”

Eric Yang, CEO of Huawei Saudi Arabia added: “We are proudly launching Huawei Cloud Riyadh Region today. It has been a great journey for us in Saudi Arabia for the last 20+ years. Huawei is constructor for intelligent society, contributor for thriving economy and cultivator for prosperous talent ecosystem. Towards 2030, we will dedicated to continuously providing ubiquitous connectivity, green energy, pervasive cloud computing and AI capabilities for Saudi Arabia to unlock unlimited opportunities of the new digital era.”

Since the US-led effective ban against Huawei products of various sorts have had such an impact on its trade with much of the West, expanding its footprint in other regions is an obvious move.

Despite these ongoing sanctions, at the beginning of the year the firm’s rotating chairman said that ‘2023 will be the first year that we return to business as usual,’ and last month it reported that its sales were up marginally for the first half of 2023.

And there are even positive signs for its smartphone business, which was practically crippled by lack of access to cutting edge chips. The recently launched Huawei Mate 60 Pro is apparently using Chinese made chips, implying the firm has access to a greater than assumed quality of domestic supply.

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