Integrator Media had an exclusive interview with Zaid Ghattas, Senior Regional Manager at AMD, who discussed the company’s extensive engagement with the Middle East market, emphasizing their collaborations with local businesses, educational institutions, and government bodies to advance technology and foster skill development.

He highlighted AMD’s customized approach in sectors like banking, where their technologies have seen notable adoption, and emphasized the importance of user feedback from the region in shaping AMD’s product development and enhancements. This strategic focus aims to meet the specific needs of Middle Eastern users while driving innovation in the industry.

What innovative solutions is AMD offering in the Middle East market to enhance user experience?

AMD stands as a key driver of next-generation compute power. Our reach extends across various components within the computing landscape. We are a leading force behind some of the world’s most powerful and efficient supercomputers. Our leadership extends to server CPUs with our EPYC line, and GPUs with both consumer-focused Radeon and commercially oriented Instinct offerings.

Our portfolio extends to the embedded segment with offerings like the AECG product line, including the Xidax series. Our product suite spans the entire spectrum of computing, from edge devices to the cloud.  Furthermore, it incorporates the highly successful Ryzen processors, including Ryzen AI variants.  Our collaborative approach with customers prioritizes providing silicon solutions that empower the next generation of computing experiences across the entire edge-to-cloud landscape.

How will the rapid growth in cloud computing impact product development, market strategies, and partnerships in the region?

AMD fosters a collaborative environment within the industry ecosystem. We actively partner with leading cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, alongside established in-country service providers.  This strategic approach ensures that our high-performance CPUs and GPUs are readily available within the Middle East market. As cloud adoption accelerates, concerns regarding operational expenditure (OPEX) are rising.  By providing efficient hardware solutions, AMD positions itself as a trusted partner capable of optimizing overall OPEX and delivering a superior operational expense experience.

4th Gen EPYC CPUs offer enhanced performance, and lower energy consumption. This ties into AMD’s sustainability focus, condensing data center infrastructure by offering CPUs with high performance at lower power. 

How do you address the growth of data centers in the Middle East and related sustainability efforts?

The UAE and Saudi Arabia, especially, are experiencing explosive data center growth.  Aligning with the UAE’s focus on sustainability, exemplified by last year’s COP28 conference, AMD offers solutions across various sectors to address this growth.

AMD actively supports public sector clients in education, aviation, transportation, and beyond.  Our primary focus is equipping them with the high-performance silicon solutions critical for success in today’s era of exponential AI growth. AI is a top priority for both public and private entities in the UAE. We are working collaboratively to identify use cases, and some truly innovative applications are being developed locally.  

AMD prioritizes delivering exceptional performance across CPUs, GPUs, and embedded systems. This commitment extends to lowering power consumption, resulting in superior performance compared to competitors. Our ongoing design advancements ensure this leadership in efficient computing.

How does AMD collaborate with local businesses, educational institutions, and government bodies in the Middle East?

AMD actively collaborates with leading tier-one customers across the region.  We engage with diverse verticals including oil and gas, research, education, and banking.  This close collaboration allows us to gather invaluable customer feedback that fuels our product development and ensures we deliver solutions that meet their evolving needs.  A prime example is our successful partnership with Emirates National Bank of Dubai (Emirates NBD).

Do you think AI is significantly exploring the banking sector, and is this development beneficial for the industry overall?

AI is a dominant trend across industries, with CIOs and AI managers actively exploring its potential. Banking is a prime example, where AI enhances customer experience and optimizes internal productivity.  The ability of AI to deliver these benefits makes it a valuable tool across various sectors, from education to infrastructure. AI is rapidly integrating into our daily lives, impacting both business (B2B) and consumer (B2C) experiences. AMD actively collaborates with creators and the gaming community to harness AI’s potential in B2C applications. From AI-powered gaming experiences on PS5 to AI-integrated laptops, AI is undeniably shaping the future. The Middle East is experiencing a surge in AI adoption, fueled by customer demand and government initiatives.

Have AMD technologies seen notable adoption in specific industries? If so, how does AMD customize its products to meet the unique requirements of these industries?

AMD actively collaborates across numerous sectors, including banking, education, healthcare, and public services. Our successful partnership with Emirates NBD in banking exemplifies the benefits we offer.  We leverage extensive customer feedback, encompassing performance, sustainability, and power efficiency, to guide our product development and deliver solutions tailored to their specific needs.

Sustainability is a key concern for CIOs, with environmental friendliness and power efficiency becoming crucial factors in technology decisions.  AMD prioritizes customer feedback in product development, ensuring our solutions balance performance with sustainability to meet both performance and cost (OPEX/CAPEX) objectives.  This focus on energy efficiency establishes AMD as a leader in providing environmentally friendly computing solutions.

AMD’s single- and dual-socket server solutions deliver exceptional performance with a reduced footprint, addressing sustainability concerns for CIOs.  This focus on efficiency, coupled with high performance, positions AMD as the ideal choice for diverse industries seeking environmentally friendly computing power.

How does AMD actively engage with users in the Middle East to get feedback? How does this input influence the company’s product development and enhancement?

Our recently launched Instinct MI300X excels in AI applications and is available through major OEMs like Dell and HP. Additionally, AMD has upcoming solutions for end-user and edge devices, building on the momentum from our CES announcements.

Beyond data centers, AMD is bringing AI to the edge with our Ryzen AI capabilities, announced at CES.  This on-device AI processing empowers users with new possibilities, enabling applications like object detection and HR tasks at the edge, reducing reliance on data center processing.

AMD stands out as a leader in equipping edge devices with AI capabilities through our Ryzen AI technology. A diverse portfolio of Ryzen AI-powered products from our partners is now available across the region. Furthermore, we empower software developers by providing tools that facilitate the creation of innovative use cases leveraging Ryzen AI’s potential.

Integrator Media had an exclusive interview with Jason Li, President of Marketing & Solutions Sales, Huawei Electric Power Digitalization Business Unit. Here in this interview the Integrator discusses how Huawei’s Cloud-Edge Synergy and High-Speed Power Line Communications are Revolutionizing the Power Industry and what sets it apart from traditional power distribution solutions.

What is Huawei’s innovative Intelligent Distribution Solution (IDS) presented at the 26th World Energy Congress?

Huawei presented the innovative Intelligent Distribution Solution (IDS) at the 26th World Energy Congress in Rotterdam. IDS is built on a unique “cloud-pipe-edge-pipe-device” framework, which includes an on-premise private cloud as the digital foundation, both wired and wireless solutions for the backhaul network, an all-in-one edge computing unit (ECU) for lean management, and next-generation high-speed power line carrier communication (HPLC) on the low-voltage side. This comprehensive approach enables real-time measurable observations that empower utility providers to optimize their operations, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction by identifying and repairing faults before power outages occur.

What sets Huawei’s IDS apart from traditional power distribution solutions, especially considering its cloud-based approach?

Traditional power distribution solutions mostly rely on isolated systems, preventing data sharing. Huawei’s cloud-pipe-edge-pipe-device architecture is one generation ahead of this approach. Additionally, Huawei focuses solely on building industry-leading digital foundations to facilitate the construction of intelligent power distribution networks.

The HPLC and all-scenario backhaul network solution builds highly reliable target networks, resulting in a 99.5%-meter reading success rate and a 100% point-to-point meter reading success rate.

Concentrators, distribution transformer monitoring devices, gateway meters, and distributed PV/charging pile gateways are integrated into ECUs, reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO). Meanwhile, platform-based hardware and app-based software architectures and products fulfill the future’s evolution requirements for the next 10-20 years.

Moreover, IDS facilitates cloud-edge synergy, enabling power enterprises to shift from single-point digitalization to architecture-supported, evolvable, open, and systematic intelligence, with quick service rollout and significant O&M efficiency improvement.

Can you elaborate on the functionality of the innovative “cloud-pipe-edge-pipe-device” framework?

IDS is an overall solution based on the cloud-pipe-edge-pipe-device architecture. On the cloud side, an on-premise private cloud is recommended as the digital foundation, unlike in a traditional virtualization model. The private cloud enables five enablement capabilities, including R&D enablement, application enablement, data enablement, AI enablement, and integration enablement, as well as four synergies: application synergy, data synergy, AI synergy, and O&M synergy.

For the backhaul network, fiber is the key strategic asset, a technology that will keep evolving for the next 30 years, and is reachable, familiar, and manageable. It also supports multi-service development, such as home broadband. Additionally, a wireless private network is also a good choice if the spectrum is ready. However, we recommend a private network rather than a public network here, considering the requirements for data security, high reliability, high quality, and low latency.

At the edge, the edge computing unit (ECU) is the lean management carrier, functioning as a smartphone, which replaces multiple terminals such as the Transformer Terminal Unit (TTU), Data Transfer Unit (DCU), and gateway. It is the ‘brain’ of the district and a vital component of the Intelligent Distribution Solution (IDS).

For last-mile connection, High-Speed Power Line Communications (HPLC) is the key to low-voltage transparency, supporting data collection in minutes, massive interactive connections, and topology identification, and delivering a 99% collection success rate. With the Intelligent Distribution Solution (IDS), we can achieve power outage alarms within 1 minute, fault locating within 3 minutes, and line loss analysis within 15 minutes.

How Huawei’s Intelligent Distribution Solution has demonstrated its effectiveness in practical applications?

Here, I’d like to give you an example of State Grid Shaanxi, where we developed an intelligent distribution solution with our partners. We helped State Grid Shaanxi build a digital foundation featuring “cloud-pipe-edge-pipe-device” synergy, enabling the company to evolve from single-point digitalization of power distribution rooms to architecture-supported, evolvable, open, and systematic intelligence.

Four key technologies are deployed in the digital foundation:

• • First, the ECU integrates multiple gateways in the transformer district and functions as the smart brain of the edge. It’s like deploying a smartphone in the district. The cloud-edge synergy technology supports the unified upgrade of 100,000 devices in the districts within 40 minutes. Different policies can be defined at each transformer district for flexible district autonomy. This way, transformer district managers can become mini-CEOs with stimulated creativity.
• • Second, we deploy optical fiber and wireless networks for backhaul. In urban areas with essential loads, 100% optical fibers are used, and GPON supports real-time access to multiple services. In other areas, wireless networks are used to quickly access various terminals and distributed new energy at low costs.
• • The third is the HPLC dual-mode technology, which solves the problem of last-mile communication. The latest version of HPLC can deliver 99.9% communication reliability, supporting minute-level data collection and second-level control for low-voltage transparency.
• • Fourth is the cloud-based unified enterprise digital platform, which acts as the smart OS of enterprises. By building the enterprise-level unified data foundation, unified AI model factory, and unified IoT platform, enterprises can accumulate know-how assets and make digital capabilities easy to use.

Based on the digital foundation and the open ecosystem, State Grid Shaanxi has implemented topology identification of the transformer, meter box, and household meters at the low-voltage side. In blind tests, the accuracy reaches 100%, the daily frozen data collection success rate reaches 99.98%, abnormal events are reported within 1 second, and power outages are notified within 3 minutes.

This is only the beginning. By enabling mini-CEOs to master digital capabilities, customers can deploy various digital technologies in different scenarios.

Integrator Media had an exclusive interview with Georges Calas, CEO of Lifesize Plans Dubai. The Q&A delves into Lifesize Plans Dubai’s innovative approach to architectural and construction planning through the integration of augmented reality (AR) technology. It explores how Lifesize Plans uses advanced projection technology to showcase building floorplans in a true 1:1 scale, allowing clients to visualize their projects with unprecedented realism.

1. Could you explain Lifesize Plans’ approach to integrating augmented reality with traditional architectural and construction planning? How did this idea originate?

Lifesize Plans Dubai, headquartered in Australia, offers a unique service of projecting building floorplans in a true 1:1 scale using advanced integrated projection technology, allowing clients to walkthrough floorplans in real size before construction begins. Additionally, Lifesize Plans leverages augmented reality to further enhance clients’ visualization of their projects.

Lifesize Plans’ approach to integrating augmented reality with traditional architectural and construction planning is both innovative and practical, offering clients a collaborative space where they can actively participate in the pre-construction planning process. It goes beyond conventional floorplans, offering clients a comprehensive visualization of their projects through AR, including interior and external landscaped areas, providing clients a clear understanding of how their project will look like upon completion.

Lifesize Plans introduced AR as an additional advantageous tool aimed at streamlining the pre-construction process. Traditional architectural and construction planning methods often encounter limitations, particularly in effectively conveying the spatial experience through 2D drawings and static renderings, which can result in client misunderstandings. Hence, the integration of advanced technology and AR into the pre-construction phase benefits all parties involved, facilitates clear communication and ensures successful execution of projects. 

• How has the introduction of AR technology transformed the client consultation process at Lifesize Plans?

Integrating AR has significantly transformed the client consultation process at Lifesize Plans Dubai. Some benefits include:

Enhanced Visualization: AR allows clients to visualize their project in a more immersive and realistic manner. Instead of relying on 2D drawings or static renderings, clients can clearly visualize a virtual representation of their future space.

Real Time Changes and Improved Communication: AR facilitates live adjustments to floorplans during pre-construction. This level of interactivity enables clients to experiment different designs and observe the outcomes of their decisions, also fostering streamlined communication between clients and professionals.

Time and Cost Efficient: By visualizing and adjusting floorplans in real-time, clients can swiftly identify risks and minimize costly revisions during construction. This streamlined process facilitates quick decision-making, ultimately saving both time and money.

• What are some of the major technical challenges you’ve faced while developing and implementing these AR services?

Incorporating advance technology including AR into diverse processes poses several technical challenges, including the following:

• Companies must consider the financial constraints associated with developing and deploying AR solutions. Customizing AR apps can range from a few thousand dollars to six figures, depending on complexity and features.
• Companies often worry about skill/technological gaps and may lack expertise in AR development, use-cases, and maintenance. Bridging these gaps requires proper training and upskilling of the workforce.
• Allocating financial and human resources to AR implementation is challenging. Organizations must balance competing priorities to ensure AR projects receive adequate attention.
• Convincing top management to invest in AR technology can be difficult. Demonstrating clear benefits and ROI is essential to gain buy-in from decision-makers.
• As AR services become more widespread, privacy and safety issues arise. Companies must address cybersecurity threats and comply with regulations to protect user data and maintain trust.
• Some stakeholders may have misconceptions about AR, leading to resistance or hesitation. Educating executives and users about the potential benefits of AR is crucial.

• In what ways do you believe Lifesize Plans’ technology sets it apart from other companies in the architectural and interior design industry?

Lifesize Plans Dubai’s advanced technology is an effective tool in the architecture, interior design and construction industry, standing out as a unique concept for various reasons.

• The technology allows individuals to walkthrough future projects before construction begins in a true 1:1 scale, providing a level of realism and spatial understanding that traditional 2D renderings often lack. Lifesize Plans’ AR services also provide detailed, immersive visualization, further allowing clients to engage with their projects.  
• Clients can make live changes to floorplans during pre-construction to see immediate effects of their choices, facilitating quick decision-making to align with their vision.
• Lifesize Plans enhances virtual projections by integrating faux furniture and props to, allowing clients to interact with and experience the layout and functionality of the space, while also savings costs for real estate developers by eliminating the need to invest in showcases villas, apartments, etc.

• As the CEO overseeing operations at Lifesize Plans, what have been your biggest learnings from integrating such advanced technology into everyday business processes?

Lifesize Plans’ integration of cutting-edge technologies has not only enhanced business processes but also revolutionized the interaction between clients and professionals revolving around architectural and interior designs. The combination of immersive experiences, collaboration, and efficiency has been a game-changer for the company but also sets new standards within the industry. Here are some of my learnings:

• Using advanced technologies has transformed client engagement and collaboration as it allows clients to explore future spaces in detail and visualize them before it is built. 
• Integrating advanced technologies is both time and cost efficient, streamlining designs and planning phases.
• Advanced technology enables stakeholders to make quick, improved, and realistic decisions. Whether it’s choosing finishes, evaluating spatial layout, or assessing overall aesthetics, having a tangible representation helps clients and professionals alike, contributing to successful project outcomes.