KARACHI: The leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, Huawei, hosted top ICT industry leaders at its ‘5G is ON’ forum, co-located at the SAMENA Leaders’ Summit.[the_ad id=”31605″] During the forum, organizations from the public and private sectors laid plans for 5G readiness in the region, while examining best practices ahead of large-scale 5G network deployments in the Middle East and internationally.

Huawei provided insights on how 5G can benefit the acceleration of digital transformation, help achieve the targets of the national visions and agendas, in addition to pushing the development of different industries and sectors in the region.

Mr. Wang Su, VP of Huawei Middle East Marketing, said that 5G industrial development is accelerating. Huawei will work with ecosystem cooperators on Cloud X solutions (Cloud VR & Cloud Gaming, etc.) and vertical industry applications (Oil & Gas, etc.) through its wireless XLabs and ME OpenLab, and introduce these use cases to Middle East operators along the 5G journey as partners rather than vendors.

Huawei is working with customers and partners to drive the large-scale commercial rollout of 5G, and build a mature 5G ecosystem that thrives on shared success, pushes the limits of technology and promotes social progress along the way, he added.

Mr. Pierric Duthoit, Industry Director, Google MENA, said that “We are happy to participate at the 5G is ON forum in Leaders’ Summit, SAMENA. As 5G is transforming most industries, we believe that the acceleration of the development of video consumption on Youtube and the rise of new applications such as VR/AR with Google Lens, Google Photos, Google Paly Store and cloud gaming will certainly benefit from the 5G. Google is working towards providing the best experience to our customers.”

Mr. Hajime (Gen) Nakamura, General Manager, Sony Professional Solutions MEA, said that to thrive in today’s media environment, you need to deliver content anytime, anywhere to an unprecedented range of platforms. You need to do it efficiently, reducing your footprint, streamlining operations and achieving financial flexibility – all without sacrificing quality. Sony’s Intelligent Media Services enhanced with the introduction of 5G services will provide customers flexibility to unlock more value from their content.

Mr. Du Yeqing, VP of Huawei 5G Product Line hosted and introduced the progress of Huawei 5G ecosystem cooperation strategy. For the past few years, one of Huawei’s main focus areas has been creating the 5G ecosystem through collaborating with leading partners in the region and globally. In 2018 Huawei announced the world’s most powerful 5G chipset and CPEs with up to 4.6Gbps downlink. Recently, Huawei announced the world’s 1st foldable 5G smartphone – Mate X.

The root reason of Huawei’s leadership in 5G is our insistent and heavy investment in 5G for the past 10 years. We have brought 283 global industry partners and 57 regional partners into X-lab. Huawei believes it will only take 3 years to achieve 500 million users to 5G, which took 6 years for 4G and 9 years for 3G. It is estimated to have 1 million sites of 5G globally in 2019.

Under the summit theme ‘Early Proliferation of 5G – Vital to Building the Digital Economy’, Huawei participated in several top discussions at the Summit.

Theseincluded the high-level leaders’ roundtable conversation addressing the impact of 5G, industry 4.0, cross-industry engagement, and digital enablement. Huawei was also a key contributor to the leaders’ panel discussion, with participants examining key policies that will enable the transition to an inclusive 5G ecosystem across the Middle East.

Alongsidethe various discussions, Huawei presented its end-to-end 5G solutions within a dedicated exhibition area, including 5G-ready technologies such as chipsets and consumer devices, network infrastructure, and bespoke solutions for over 280 global industry partners.

A number of Huawei’s ecosystem partners were with the company at the SAMENA Leaders’ Summit, including Google, Sony, China Unicomm, TYJW, Playgiga, Vsiyon, LetinVR, BoE, Aerodyne, No Fire Cloud, Quectel, INLIFE-HANDNET, MGI TECH Co. Ltd, HiScene, DALU ROBOTECH, and Fibocom.