Qatar embarks on a significant course to implement innovative ecosystem and infrastructure towards transforming the country into a digital transformation said an expert.
Businesses in Qatar have been heavily invested in modern technology, reinforced by governments as early consumers of the technology. The development of non-oil sectors through investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies could strategically position the country as a regional hub for tech advancements.
“The country’s evident transformation has begun with an economic transformation driven by Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), Aviation, Tourism, and Sports and we believe Data and AI and Digital are the next frontier,” said Ali Nehme, Partner, Digital Services at PwC Middle East during an interview with The Peninsula.
He noted that the adoption of AI and data practices have an “incredible role” to play within the digital transformation of businesses across various sectors.
AI became a powerful and accessible tool last year and there is an immense focus and push from companies across the globe to create more citizen-relevant and tangible solutions that have the power to reinvent industries.
Nehme explained “Responsible AI is essential for data control and can assess models for explainability, robustness, bias, fairness, and transparency. It offers checks and balances and escalation protocols when evaluating and validating AI models. It is the leading priority among industry leaders for AI applications, with an emphasis on improving privacy, explainability, bias detection, and governance.”
He stated that a strategic national response is witnessed around the world from governments to acquire Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) for AI-powered economic development but also to drive national transformations to incorporate Data and AI-driven.
Emphasising the government’s essential role in driving AI transformation, Nehme said a robust regulatory framework needs to be adopted which has common standards and controls allowing them to tap into their data and drive national efforts towards large data collection across priority sectors including healthcare, financial services, oil and gas among others.
He also stressed the strategic investment in sovereign computing infrastructure. “The race for GPUs is real around the world and governments are investing heavily in capturing the GPU supply to catalyse their transformation and attract innovation ideas and investments into their economy,” mentioned Nehme. Pointing out the suitable approach towards tech platforms, he remarked that it is important to take control of the data through the right management tools and identify the business problems to solve.
He also said that governments need to create impactful partnerships and faster procurement mechanisms that foster an innovation ecosystem to deliver services and solutions. Nehme underlined that “Failing fast, experimenting, and starting small are all key principles to follow when dealing with evolving technologies such as AI which means governments need to rethink their procurement mechanisms to allow the innovation ecosystem to thrive.”
“We are seeing a heavy focus on building common sovereign compute infrastructure that allows consumption of large data sets that might be considered national digital assets such as genome data or oil and gas data without the risk of the data leaving the country. This requires collaboration with the Research & Development (R&D) ecosystem within the country, academia, and innovators and entrepreneurs,” he added.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Joel Johnson
Quelle/Source: The Peninsula Qatar, 19.03.2024
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