With an Eye on AI, Huawei Plans Deeper Expansion in Qatar
By Kelsey Cheng
(Doha, Qatar) — Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is planning a deeper footprint in Qatar, expanding from the Gulf country’s telecommunications to its emerging artificial intelligence (AI) industry, an executive at the Chinese company’s cloud unit said.
“Having accumulated vast experience in building up our AI capabilities, Huawei has a lot to offer to Qatar’s government and businesses,” said Zhu Shenggao, vice president of AI at Huawei Cloud Middle East and Central Asia.
These capabilities include providing the computing power needed to train AI models, private and public cloud infrastructure, the deployment of Huawei’s proprietary model Pangu, and various AI applications such as smart city planning and chatbot assistants, Zhu told Caixin on Feb. 23 on the sidelines of Web Summit Qatar.
Huawei made a bit of a name for itself in Qatar during the 2022 FIFA World Cup. During the soccer tournament, the Chinese company worked with local carriers to deploy its 5G wireless technology across eight stadiums and supported the event’s live broadcast.
“It was a large investment,” said Zhu, who is based in Dubai. “We deployed many engineers on site and did a lot of testing prior to the event. Throughout the event, we had zero tech issues. In my meetings with Qatari government officials this trip, they remember Huawei from its work on the World Cup.
“Building on this, we are now hoping to expand cooperation in other areas in Qatar.”
Computing research and development, as well as media and communications are some of the industries where Zhu sees potential for cloud adoption in Qatar.
Huawei has had a presence in the Middle East for decades. It started off as a telecom operator around 25 years ago and gradually expanded to doing business with the region’s governments and companies. The Shenzhen-based firm began offering public cloud services in 2017 on the Chinese mainland — a business it later took to the Middle East.
Currently, most of its clients in the Middle East are in the government, utilities, or oil and gas sectors. They include working with the Saudi Arabia government on its Neom megacity project on the Red Sea coast. Huawei offers its smart city solutions for the project, including digital twin technology, where AI is used to model or replicate physical assets in a virtual environment to optimize their functionality.
“Huawei’s cloud presence is growing rapidly in the region, driven by increasing demand for digital transformation solutions,” Zhu said, without giving an exact market share. In October, Steven Yi, president of Huawei Middle East and Central Asia, said at an industry event that the company achieved a tenfold increase in public cloud revenue in the region over the past year.
Huawei’s next step is to integrate more Arabic dialects into its Pangu model and customize its other cloud and AI products for different industries in hopes of expanding its customer base in the region, Zhu said.
During Web Summit Qatar, which ran from Feb. 23 to Feb. 26 in Doha, Huawei Cloud signed a deal with Starlink WLL, a major distributor in Qatar’s mobile and software market, to become the Chinese company’s cloud distributor.
“This partnership enables Starlink to expand Huawei Cloud’s reach through a strong reseller network, offering innovative cloud solutions with competitive pricing, incentives and technical support,” Huawei said in a statement.
This comes as Qatar is rapidly advancing its Vision 2030 development plan, which aims to transform the Gulf nation and diversify its economy so it’s no longer dependent on fossil fuels by fostering innovation in areas including AI, energy and transportation.
As one of the world’s largest exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG), Qatar also announced plans to boost its LNG production capacity to a 142 million tons per year by 2030, a nearly 85% increase from current levels.
The third Qatar National Development Strategy, covering 2024 to 2030, targets average annual GDP growth of 4% through 2030, while lifting labor productivity by an average of 2% a year and boosting cumulative foreign direct investment by $100 billion by 2030.
Lessons from DeepSeek
Being open source is a main factor to DeepSeek’s popularity, according to Zhu. “It demonstrates the power of collaboration in driving AI innovation. Open source models enable faster advancements in AI,” he said.
Since DeepSeek’s meteoric rise, U.S. and Chinese tech giants including Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp., Amazon Web Services Inc., as well as Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Huawei have added DeepSeek’s AI models to their cloud offerings, aiming to attract more developers and subscribers.
Huawei is planning to deploy DeepSeek to its public cloud clients in Saudi Arabia by the end of the month, Zhu added.
Contact reporter Kelsey Cheng (kelseycheng@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)
caixinglobal.com is the English-language online news portal of Chinese financial and business news media group Caixin. Global Neighbours is authorized to reprint this article.
Image: thodonal – stock.adobe.com