The technology landscape is constantly changing in the Middle East region, but it certainly has amped up since last year due to COVID-19. The recent rapid digital acceleration in the Middle East region has placed technology as the cornerstone of global leadership. But, for organisations, it also means expanding the definition of value to include how well people thrive, healthcare, sustainability and more.
These trends may not represent the most bleeding-edge technologies, but they are the ones drawing big implications for how and where to compete, and the capabilities organisations need to accelerate performance.
5G Adoption
A critical part of digital transformation is the widespread adoption of 5G. There’s a large-scale investment in 5G rollouts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Bahrain. A study conducted in mid-2020 by Opensignal found that the Saudi 5G network was the fastest globally in terms of average download speed. By 2025 MENA region is forecasted to have over 80 million subscribers of 5G.
The movement to develop 5G networks reflects both government-led initiatives such as Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and consumer-driven demand for mobile services throughout the Middle East. Improvements offered by 5G give businesses access to lightning-fast data transfer speeds and improved network reliability.
5G technology promises download speeds hundreds of times faster, expanded bandwidth, and reduced latency, enabling technologies such as telesurgery and the continued expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT). 5G can connect a greater number of devices at faster speeds than ever before.
Also, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology in the oil and gas sector will enable more efficient monitoring and data collection. According to a report from STL Partners, the oil and gas sectors stand to increase their contribution to GDP by nearly 4.9 per cent through the implementation of 5G and IoT technologies.
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Technology towards zero food waste
More than 30 per cent of the world’s food is lost or wasted every year, and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that the Near East and North Africa region wastes an average of 250 kg of food per capita each year, or about a third of food overall.
The UAE estimates that food waste costs its economy about $3.5 billion annually.
Restaurants rarely collect accurate data identifying the kinds of food they dispose of and the reasons for it. Without this basic information, managers can only guess how to reduce waste. In such a backdrop, using technology to reduce food waste is critical.
Winnow, a tech company uses cutting-edge AI technology to solve that problem by empowering staff to monitor their waste, cut costs, save time, and run more profitable and sustainable kitchens. The UAE’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environment collaborated with Winnow to reduce food waste. In addition, middle East startups like EreoGo, which describes itself as a conscious grocery shopping app, and Uvera, which uses FDA-approved UV light exposure to extend the shelf life of meat, baked goods, and fresh produce by 20-60 per cent, are leading in steps to fight food waste using technology.
The Emirates Group also uses AI algorithms to predict for each individual flight on each day the volume of food that will be consumed by its business class passengers. The algorithm’s predictions help it to prevent over-catering, food waste and reduce meal and fuel costs, which translates into significant savings. We expect more business organisations in the food industry to identify opportunities for digital innovations to reduce food waste.
Rise in digital and contactless payment
With increased online shopping, the digital payment industry is set for major growth this year and beyond. According to a study from London-based payment systems provider Checkout.com, among those who shop online at least once a month, 62 per cent usually pay by a card or digital wallet, compared with 44 per cent among the less frequent online shoppers. The region, traditionally dominated by cash payments, presents a growth opportunity for fintech players. The high regional mobile penetration provides the core infrastructure needed for digital payments growth.
Meanwhile, in a Mastercard global consumer study, 70 per cent of respondents in the MEA region say they are now using contactless payments, citing safety and cleanliness as key drivers amidst the pandemic. Furthermore, 79 per cent said contactless payment methods have been easy to adopt. Contactless payments are up to 10 times faster than other in-person payment methods, enabling customers to get in and out of stores faster.
AI and automation in financial services
Banks and insurance companies expect an 86 per cent increase in artificial intelligence (AI) investments by 2025, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit.
The financial service industry is a leading adopter of AI, especially through chatbot technology. Emirates NBD developed Eva, the AI-based personal banking assistant. Liv, Emirates NBD’s lifestyle banking arm, also offers a conversational chatbot, and the bank also uses a “Pepper” customer service robot in its Dubai branch.
Wealth management is seeing robo-advisory platforms that offer advanced investment services at low cost by using AI and automation to allocate and manage funds and allocations are emerging, with notable players including UAE-based Sarwa.
IDC also forecasts that by 2023, 40 per cent of insurers will be automating claims processes with AI technologies and conversational interfaces to improve the speed of response, efficiency, and personalisation.
Technologies such as AI and machine learning are helping banks and other financial institutions to automate services quickly and address customer queries more efficiently during the pandemic, according to a study by Verloop.io. Conversational AI is engaging customers and encouraging self-service, and this improves customer satisfaction as 65 per cent of users said they prefer automated self-services for simple issues, according to Verloop.io. Study.
For companies to exploit the full potential of AI, user-friendly AI platforms that allow business employees to quickly build models, easily understand and trust their output, and confidently make decisions will be critical in the deployment of AI at a larger scale.
Mixed Reality
VR and AR are forecast to contribute $4.1 billion to the UAE economy by 2030, according to a report by PwC Middle East. AR, VR, and MR technologies are proliferating across the region and will significantly impact marketing communications for organisations across sectors and industries.
Engineers and technicians can be fed information such as repair diagrams in real-time using an AR interface, enabling them to quickly identify problems and conduct repairs and maintenance. In the logistics sector, smart glasses can display picking information for the worker, highlighting the location and displaying product details and packing instructions.
Choosing the path of early technology adoption will have tremendous implications for business and the region’s economy.
Health data is gold
Many Middle East countries in the region attract medical tourists. While the industry has been hit by the novel coronavirus, some countries are planning for a post-pandemic future.
According to the Booking Health blog, Israel generates $500 million annually from medical tourism. Next door to Israel, Jordan has a booming market — it receives an average of more than 250,000 foreign patients per year.
Over the years, the medical tourism industry in the UAE, especially in Dubai, has been growing annually by 5.5 per cent, bolstered by various government initiatives to boost healthcare and a significant jump in private healthcare investments in building state-of-the-art medical infrastructure.
The Dubai Health Authority introduced the Dubai Health Experience, a one-stop-shop online portal for medical tourists that bring together doctors, hospitals, hotels, travel agents and airlines under one roof. With healthcare’s big data market expected to reach nearly $70 billion in 2025, we expect to see a rapid acceleration of health data collection, which will give the healthcare industry in the region an unprecedented opportunity to leverage and deploy groundbreaking digital capabilities, such as AI, to improve treatment.
Smart use of health data has the potential to dramatically improve patient care — it means more accurate diagnoses, greater operational efficiency and identifying evidence-based treatment plans that deliver better results with reduced risk. Big data analytics integrate prior knowledge, historical data and experimental learning to create intelligent, actionable solutions in real-time.
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Cybersecurity
Over 10 million Distributed Denial of Service cyber-attacks were recorded globally in 2020, including a 183 per cent increase in the UAE alone. Ransomware attacks are on the rise, with the government, private, oil and gas, telecom and healthcare sectors particularly affected. According to Interpol, the Covid-19 crisis has created an unprecedented opportunity for cybercriminals to increase their attacks. Yet most companies overestimate their cybersecurity performance, with only 24 per cent actually meeting the bar, according to a 2020 Bain study.
In such a scenario, Security Access Service Edge (SASE) and Secure Cloud Enablement will see an increased uptake by organisations across all industry verticals and security infrastructures such as next-gen firewall platforms, application protection solutions and DNS security solutions. In addition, organisations will invest in managed cyber defence and strengthening the Security Operations Centre triad, specifically in areas that included SIEM solutions, network detection and response solutions, endpoint protection/detection and response solutions and vulnerability management. Companies should tailor security to their active directory, invest in monitoring to detect attacks in real-time.
Edge Computing
Edge computing helps in preserving bandwidth and increasing efficiency by processing information closer to the source of data, the users and devices that require it, rather than sending that data for processing in central locations or the cloud, and this will accelerate the adoption of edge computing across the Middle East as organisations are looking to improve productivity gains, data insights and application speeds.
By embedding AI locally, manufacturers can reduce latency issues and accelerate the generation of insights at the source while lowering cloud services usage and cost. Connectivity cost also drops, as processing part of the data locally reduces bandwidth and cellular data usage.
Edge computing is moving closer to the users because of 5G, allowing businesses to be connected to the data centres to share the data with its users. There will be a shift in the landscape of the data centres, from the centralised to more distributed data centres because of the speed of the connectivity, low latency and broadband and the millimetre wave that will allow businesses to connect massive IoT sensors on devices.
Contactless Convenience
Contactless technology is defining the customer experience post-COVID, from touch-free payments and “just walk out” shopping to biometric check-in for travel and accommodation. And with security always a high priority in an increasingly globalised world, facial recognition security systems are becoming more and more common.
These safe and undeniably convenient innovations have been made possible with more advanced processors and memory chips, better image sensors, smarter AI and faster communications networks, all of which will continue to improve in the coming years.
Last year, Emirates launched an integrated biometric path at Dubai International airport. Utilising the latest biometric technology – a mix of facial and iris recognition, Emirates passengers can now check-in for their flight, complete immigration formalities, enter the Emirates Lounge, and board their flights, simply by strolling through the airport. The various touchpoints in the biometric path allow for a hygienic contactless travel journey, reducing human interaction and emphasising health and safety.
Hamad International Airport has also launched contactless check-in kiosks to allow travellers to check-in and drop off their luggage without needing to touch the electronic screens.
AI engineering
As businesses and governments across the Middle East have started to shift their focus towards artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, the region is expected to accrue 2 per cent of total global AI benefits in 2030, equating to $320 billion.
If leveraged well, there is a chance for this region to be a key AI player in the global market. But that can happen if a robust AI engineering strategy facilitates the performance, scalability, interpretability and reliability of AI models while delivering the full value of AI investments. AI projects often face issues with maintainability, scalability and governance, which makes them a challenge for most organisations, and AI engineering offers a pathway, making AI a part of the mainstream. It brings together various disciplines to provide a clear path to value when operationalising the combination of multiple AI techniques.
