Earlier this year, United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based operator Etisalat underwent a major rebrand, renaming itself ‘e&’ and restructuring numerous divisions in an attempt to transform itself from a traditional telco to a world-leading tech company. 
One such new division was ‘e& enterprise’, aiming to focus on providing digital technologies and expertise to businesses around the world and assisting them with their digital transformation…

Earlier this year, United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based operator Etisalat underwent a major rebrand, renaming itself ‘e&’ and restructuring numerous divisions in an attempt to transform itself from a traditional telco to a world-leading tech company. 

One such new division was ‘e& enterprise’, aiming to focus on providing digital technologies and expertise to businesses around the world and assisting them with their digital transformation. 

Now, expanding e& enterprise’s technological capabilities, the unit has struck a three-year contract with AI platform specialist DataRobot, seeking to use the latter’s platform to offer support to government and business partners in the UAE, Morocco, and Egypt. 

The strategic alliance between the two companies will see e& enterprise launch an AI-as-a-Service (AlaaS) offering, giving enterprises access to an end-to-end cloud-based platform for building, training, deploying, and managing AI and machine learning solutions. 

The AIaaS model will allow these organisations to benefit from a broad range of AI-related technology and expertise, focussing on specific use cases and generating value, without the expense of developing these capabilities in-house.

As part of the agreement, the two companies will also open a new AI Center of Excellence, with experts therein overseeing the implementation of organisation-wide AI projects. 

“We stand ever ready to seek new strategic partnerships that will add value to government and enterprises so that they can become more data-driven and technology-enabled, efficient and cost-effective in the digital space,” said Salvador Anglada, CEO, e& enterprise. “The ‘AI as a Service’ delivery model enables these companies to implement and run advanced AI solutions at a fraction of the cost of building and maintaining their own system. Our strategic partnership with DataRobot will influence and accelerate regional markets for AI adoption; our managed services will unlock tremendous value for all industry sectors.” 

The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

In related news, Etisalat Group has been very busy of late, striking numerous major deals, particularly in Egypt. Earlier this week, the company’s Egyptian mobile unit Etisalat Misr signed six deals with Telecom Egypt for around $912.5 million, the largest of which related to offering their services to customers over Telecom Egypt’s network. 

Separate to these agreements, the company has also signed a recent Memorandum of Understanding with Telecom Egypt for the creation of a new submarine cable linking Egypt directly to Saudi Arabia for the first time. 

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