Huawei opened a cloud data centre in Saudi Arabia’s capital city Riyadh, a move to grow its cloud services in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa providing innovative, reliable, secure, and sustainable cloud services.
H.E. Eng. Haitham bin Abdul Rahman Al-Ohali, Vice Minister at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) in Saudi Arabia, shared his perspective on this monumental achievement: “Huawei is a proud partner in our country’s technological progress having worked with the Ministry, service providers, enterprises and universities in various collective efforts towards digital transformation. We look forward to the transformative impact the Huawei Cloud Riyadh Region will have on our digital ecosystem, creating new avenues for innovation and growth.”
The Riyadh Region provides several benefits to customers. First, this region translates Huawei’s global expertise on digital transformation into industries’ excellence, making innovation easier and faster. Huawei Cloud Saudi Region is located in Riyadh and through a 3AZ (availability zone) architecture, it will provide highly available and secure cloud services, ensuring the stable operations of various services. In addition, the Region can provide full-stack cloud services, including infrastructure, databases, containers, big data, and AI services to meet the requirements of various industries.
Based on the 3AZ high-reliability architecture, the Riyadh Region provides low latency, covering all existing carriers’ networks powered by STC, Zain, and Mobily. The local data centre will store data locally in line with local data regulations. The company will also launch 68 cloud services in three categories- data, AI, and cloud native.
Steven Yi, Senior Vice President of Huawei and President of Huawei Middle East and Central Asia Region, said: “I’ve cherished numerous unforgettable moments in this extraordinary country. Just yesterday, walking through the newly renovated Diriyah evoked my deep emotions. It brought to mind an old Chinese saying: ‘Build the right nest, and a Phoenix will come.’ The essence is clear: create an inviting environment, and you’ll attract the best. This is undeniably true for Saudi, a nation that consistently attracts top investors.”
The company revealed that Huawei Cloud will utilise a number of industry-leading technologies to advance intelligence for Saudi Arabia, including the Pangu Models 3.0, which address AI adoption challenges, leveraging industry insights to enhance AI capabilities across sectors like finance, government, manufacturing, and more. Pangu Models 3.0 will usher in a new era of innovation in the Kingdom while accelerating economic diversification.
The company also released the “Saudi Arabia Go Cloud Go Global” programme to connect Chinese and Saudi enterprises, fostering growth and innovation. The company will leverage its strong experience of working in more than 170 countries and regions, various industries, advanced technologies, and solutions to help Chinese enterprises enter Saudi Arabia and enhance partnerships with local stakeholders.
Jacqueline Shi, President of Huawei Cloud Global Marketing and Sales Service, said, “Huawei Cloud aims high, aims global, and aims here in Saudi Arabia. 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, said: “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 a constructor for an intelligent society, contributor to a thriving economy, and cultivator for a prosperous talent ecosystem. Towards 2030, we will stay 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.”
