Digital innovation highlighted at Mideast largest IT fair in Dubai

DUBAI — The five-day Gitex Technology Week, the biggest information technology (IT) fair and exhibition in the Middle East, ended Thursday with a flood of partnerships sealed to boost the fourth industrial revolution in the region.

"Cloud computing, mobility and the Internet of Things (IoT) will transform our daily lives for good," said Li Xiangyu, vice-president of Public Affairs and Communications Middle East at Huawei, China's biggest ICT solutions provider.

Huawei announced at Gitex to deepen its long-standing cooperation with US info management provider Commvault in the area of data backup with the launch of a Hybrid Cloud Backup Solution for Huawei Cloud.

Cloud computing, the transfer of hosted services through the internet in order to increase data sourcing flexibility and to save data storage resources, is one of the top themes at this year's Gitex.

According to German software developer SAP, Saudi government agencies are rapidly adopting cloud-based solutions, which are driving efficiency and new government services models.

SAP signed with the Saudi government a Memorandum of Understanding for a long-term partnership during German Chancellor Angela Merkel's official visit to Riyadh earlier in May.

"Saudi Arabia is enabling nationwide digital transformation and driving the goal of increasing the non-oil government revenue from 163 billion Saudi riyal ($43.46 billion) to 1 trillion Saudi riyal by 2030," an SAP spokesperson said.

Cooperation is also high on the IT Security agenda. Telecom provider du, the second biggest telco firm in the UAE, has signed on Wednesday an agreement with American software company Symantec to provide cloud-delivered web security services in the UAE.

Another survey released at Gitex showed that 80 percent of Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) worldwide said IoT will cause "significant" or "some" changes to their practices and requirements.

The Gitex 2017 attracted 4,100 exhibitors from 170 countries and approximately 100,000 professional visitors, according to the organizer, the Dubai World Trade Center.