Huawei launches new data cloud center in Saudi Arabia
The Chinese tech giant says its looking to expand its footprint in West Asia after overcoming a US blockade on chipmaking tools
Huawei Cloud announced on 4 September the launch of the opening of a cloud data center in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, as the Chinese tech giant looks to expand its footprint across West Asia.
The announcement was made at the Huawei Cloud Summit Saudi Arabia 2023.
"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,” said Haitham bin Abdul Rahman Al-Ohali, the Vice-Minister of the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).
“We look forward to the transformative impact the new data center will have on our digital ecosystem, creating new avenues for innovation and growth,” Al-Ohali added.
"The implementation of Huawei cloud is not just about us but is a bridge that will bring other Chinese companies to Saudi Arabia," Steven Yi, Huawei's regional president, said during the summit.
The cloud data center in Riyadh is Huawei's 30th such center worldwide and will reportedly support government services and “allow for AI applications and language models in Arabic,” a company official told a briefing.
In February, Huawei announced plans to invest $400 million in the Saudi Arabia cloud region over the next five years. This was announced less than a month after former Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang revealed plans to establish a free trade zonebetween China and the Gulf “as soon as possible.”
Huawei made headlines this week over the release of its latest flagship phone, the Mate 60 Pro, which is powered by an advanced 7-nanometer processor fabricated in China by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. despite a crushing US blockade that has prevented the company from acquiring foreign chipmaking tools.
“The Mate 60 advance could reset the dynamics of the tech clash, as it suggests Huawei is able to come close to, though not quite match, the fastest mobile devices using a chip that’s designed and produced in China,” Bloomberg reported on Monday.