The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Telecom Egypt (TE) and Huawei Technologies. The aim is to establish a strategic partnership between the two companies in cloud computing. This comes as part of the ICT Minister’s participation in the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2019) on February 25-28, in Barcelona.

Talaat stated that as per the MoU, Huawei will establish its own cloud computing system through TE data center, making the first cloud computing system in Africa and the Middle East established by an international company in Egypt.

TE CEO and Managing Director Adel Hamed said that this agreement is the first of its kind for TE, and is a revolution in digital transformation. TE always seeks to cooperate with major technology companies like Huawei, to contribute to national and regional development, creating new sources of income. He added that TE looks forward to providing and developing innovative services for a wide range of customers, such as the Internet of Things and cloud services.

Cloud services do not just include governmental services; they include services for individuals and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) as well, where data storage is available, thus helping raise the efficiency of work within companies.

The MoU comes in the framework of TE’s strategy to keep up with the technological development through establishing a cloud platform to cover its clients’ needs, including companies and governmental entities.  This is in addition to contributing to the implementation of Egypt’s strategy of digital transition, and transferring Egypt into a digital regional hub.

The MoU was signed by TE CEO and Managing Director Adel Hamed, and Huawei North Africa Vice President Eric Liu.

Relevantly, Talaat has met with Huawei Technologies Vice President of Public and Government Affairs Mark Xueman, Huawei North Africa Vice President Eric Liu, and Huawei Egypt CEO Vincent Sun, to discuss the possibility of expanding Huawei’s business in Egypt through establishing a software development center.

They discussed, as well, the possibility of cooperation to make specialized training programs in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and smart cities available for 4000 trainees, annually.

The meeting was attended by the Associate Minister for Networks and ICT Infrastructure at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Hossam El-Gamal, and a number of TE officials.

Talaat is due to hold a number of meetings with officials of ICT international organizations and global companies.