Technology is now a permanent, yet dynamic fixture in our daily lives. Digital solutions are driving transformative change, creating new avenues and opportunities for nations to realise a more prosperous future.
Today, rapidly evolving digital trends are leading to a radical change in citizen expectations. This is driving governments to adopt technology to improve the quality and accessibility of public services and cultivate an environment where citizens can thrive.
The UAE’s vision for digital transformation
Over the years, the UAE has taken concrete steps to build a robust digital economy. It is considered one of the most advanced nations in the adoption of modern technologies. In 2017, the UAE Government launched the UAE Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), which aims to strengthen the country’s position as a global hub for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and to increase its contribution to the national economy by means of advancing innovation and future technologies.
The UAE government’s dedication to the digital economy is further strengthened with the recent introduction of the National Digital Economy Strategy. Spearheaded by the new Council for Digital Economy, the strategy aims to double the contribution of the digital economy to the country’s GDP from 9.7 percent to 19.4 percent within the next ten years. It also aims to enhance the position of the UAE as a hub for digital transformation in the region and globally.
With the goal to diversify and bolster its economic growth, the UAE is determined to embrace technological innovation with cloud computing as its foundation. The cloud plays a critical role in enabling organisations across both public and private sectors to fuse existing operational processes with novel solutions to allow for greater flexibility and scalability.
A hotbed for investments and innovation
Global intelligence company IDC revealed that spending on public cloud services in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region will surpass $6.8 billion in 2022. “The Middle East holds many opportunities where cloud technology can be a key enabler,” explains Paul Misener, Vice President for Global Innovation Policy and Communications, Amazon.
“Over the last few years, we have seen dramatic change as businesses and governments across the region have started to take advantage of the cloud in meaningful ways. And this is happening across all sectors: including financial services, hospitality, media and entertainment, retail, and aerospace.”
For the UAE alone, IDC forecasted that spending on cloud computing will reach $778 million in the next two years.
In line with this growth, the country has become a hotbed for hyperscalers to establish their cloud infrastructure regions in the Middle East. Setting up such cloud regions in the country is not only expected to bring developers, startups, entrepreneurs, enterprises and government entities even greater choice for running their applications and serving end users, but also propel the UAE economy upwards by creating jobs and driving investments across a wide array of industries.
Most recently, cloud giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) officially launched the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region. With the new AWS Region, more than $5 billion (AED 20 billion) is expected to flow into the country over the next 15 years in areas like capital expenditure on data centre construction, operational expenses, facility costs and purchase of goods and services from major businesses.
“We have seen significant acceleration in public and private sector cloud adoption across the region. I think this is just the early stages of a dramatic acceleration in innovation with cloud computing – companies and organisations will only increase their use of cloud as the far-reaching benefits of the technology become more and more apparent,” says Misener.
He adds, “The launch of the AWS Region in the UAE is a key moment for the acceleration of digital transformation for our customers, particularly those in highly regulated industries such as government, financial services, energy, and healthcare.”
AWS’s commitment to UAE’s digital future
With a strong presence in the region, the UAE is one of the key markets for AWS in the Middle East. Over the years, organisations in the country are among the millions leveraging AWS technologies as they seek to accelerate innovation, increase agility and achieve cost savings.
“We have a long history of working with customers in the UAE, with many having used our services from the early days of AWS, including some of the region’s leading and most innovative enterprises and start-ups,” explains Misener.
“The UAE is one of the most innovative countries in the world and has embraced technology on every front – from building smart cities of the future, to using tech to better deliver citizen services, and even innovating beyond Earth’s atmosphere, and we look forward to helping accelerate its innovation drive with the AWS Cloud.”
To support the digitalisation initiatives of UAE firms, AWS launched its first Amazon CloudFront edge locations in 2018, offering customers access to Amazon CloudFront and Amazon Route 53 services. That same year, AWS also launched AWS Direct Connect locations, allowing customers to establish private connectivity between AWS and their data centre, office or colocation environment. Two years later, the company brought AWS Outposts to the UAE, providing customers based in the country with the ability to run AWS compute, storage, database, and other services on-premises.
The new AWS Middle East (UAE) Region, will consist of three Availability Zones connected together via high-bandwidth, low-latency network connections. This connectivity will enable customers to effectively leverage applications that need synchronous replication between AZs for availability or redundancy.
Looking ahead, the ongoing and planned investments in the UAE will generate positive effects on the economy. It will enable local businesses to thrive by providing them access to cloud technologies that can reduce the costs of running a business, spur innovation and offer seamless access to resources. It will also have short- and long-term impacts on employment, as these investments are estimated to support an average of nearly 6,000 jobs annually between 2022 and 2036.
‘Customer obsession’ drives Amazon Web Services’ vision for the UAE
Overall, the planned investment associated with the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region will contribute over $11 billion (AED 41 billion) to the GDP of the UAE by 2036. This GDP includes the value added by the sale of AWS technologies to the ICT sector in the country, as well as the direct, indirect, and induced effects of AWS purchases from the UAE data centre supply chain.
“In addition, AWS is investing in education initiatives, training, and start-up enablement programs to support the UAE’s digital transformation and economic development plans,” says Misener.
“To foster entrepreneurship and the growth of new businesses in the UAE, AWS will further expand the AWS Activate programme to support start-ups and SMBs. We will also continue to work with government entities in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to support the up-skilling and re-training of people to build a community of entrepreneurs, developers, and tech influencers. For students and educators, we will provide higher education institutions and their educators with cloud computing courses through the AWS Educate and AWS Academy programs, which help prepare students to pursue industry-recognised certifications and careers in cloud computing.”
Ultimately, the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region will bring vast opportunities for organisations in the region as it can help eliminate some of the barriers to cloud adoption while enabling the UAE to achieve great leaps towards a digital future.
Click here to find out more about the economic impact of the new AWS Middle East (UAE) Region.
