Investment Saudi Arabia and Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu have signed an agreement with Huawei to establish a training academy and a smart city innovation centre in Yanbu, accelerating smart city deployment in line with the Kingdoms Vision 2030.
The agreement was signed on the sidelines of King Salman bin Abdulaziz visit to China and during the 2017 Saudi-China Investment Forum.
As per the deal, the smart city innovation centre – which is the first of its kind in the region – is set to open this year. The academy too will open for training soon.
On the agreement, Dr Alaa bin Abdullah Nassif, CEO of the Royal Commission of Yanbu and Jazan Economic City, said: “Enforcing the directives of the wise leadership and with the aim of achieving the strategic goal of developing a unique city that is technologically advanced based on global standards of smart cities, the Royal Commission of Yanbu established and developed the first smart city in the Saudi Arabia through partnerships with several private sector companies.
“Today, we have signed a partnership deal with one of the leading companies, Huawei, to develop and establish the smart city innovation centre as well as developing the Huawei training academy in order to transfer the knowledge and global experience in the technology field.”
In order to build the most skilled team in the kingdom, Huawei will be supplying the latest in lab equipment, training instructors, monitoring talent development, and other proactive knowledge sharing initiatives.
The smart city innovation centre is expected to open in 2017, and will aim to support Saudi Arabia 2020 transformation program focused on growing their digital economy. The centre will be home to innovative smart city technology, providing a platform for the two parties to create, build and deploy new services in Yanbu industrial city.