The UAE Ministry of Economy’s “The Entrepreneurial Nation” initiative has joined hands with Huawei Cloud to introduce the Huawei Cloud Startup Program in the UAE. This collaborative effort aims to invigorate the country’s startup ecosystem by offering eligible businesses up to $150,000 in vouchers and access to valuable resources within Huawei Cloud’s ecosystem.
The significance of startups and small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UAE cannot be overlooked. According to the Ministry of Economy, a staggering 94% of all companies in the country fall under the SME or startup category, providing employment to more than 86% of the private sector’s workforce. Dubai, in particular, relies heavily on SMEs, with 95% of the emirate’s firms being SMEs, responsible for employing 42% of its workforce and contributing over 40% to its GDP. In this context, the Huawei Cloud Startup Program becomes a crucial step towards boosting innovation, digitalization, and entrepreneurship in the UAE.
The Entrepreneurial Nation initiative, launched in October 2022, represents an ambitious and unique national project aimed at fostering the growth of SMEs and nurturing a vibrant entrepreneurial environment in the UAE. It is built on substantial public-private partnerships, geared towards developing tools and practices that promote entrepreneurship in the country.
As part of a global support initiative, the Huawei Cloud Startup Program caters to technology startups worldwide, facilitating their business growth. By leveraging Huawei’s vast expertise and cutting-edge cloud innovations, the program helps startups overcome challenges related to funding, technical resources, and commercial connections, enabling them to expand and drive the region’s digital transformation with the power of Huawei Cloud.
Jiawei Liu, CEO of Huawei UAE, expressed pride in collaborating with The Entrepreneurial Nation Initiative by the Ministry of Economy, stating that Huawei is committed to serving as the foundation for the UAE’s digitalization and development. As a prominent global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, Huawei seeks to support the growth and development of the SME sector in the UAE.
Huawei Cloud offers startups the advantage of scaling their businesses effortlessly by eliminating high infrastructure costs and limited computing capacity associated with on-premise data centers. Additionally, startups gain access to cutting-edge technologies and resources at a fraction of the cost.
Participating entrepreneurs can tap into Huawei’s extensive ecosystem, providing them access to innovations, technical support, mentorship, and market development opportunities. Huawei Cloud also facilitates go-to-market assistance, helping small business owners effectively reach their target audience. Collaboration is also fostered, connecting founders with like-minded entrepreneurs, industry experts, and thought leaders from around the world.
The Huawei Cloud Startup Program has already showcased successful stories globally. Intella, a two-year-old Egyptian startup, utilized Huawei Cloud ModelArts to develop a highly accurate Arabic voice-to-text transcription engine, trained and optimized on Huawei Cloud. Through the program, Intella received substantial cloud credits for AI model training and enjoyed co-marketing and co-selling with Huawei Cloud’s Egypt team, scaling up its solution commercially.
Another triumph is Bright, a leading Thai-based digital school management platform, which leveraged Huawei Cloud ecosystem resources and joint innovation with large enterprises to experience rapid growth in investment, client base, and team expansion. Bright now stands as Thailand’s largest education tech startup with impressive numbers of students and teachers, and plans for an IPO in the next three years.
Huawei Cloud, recognized as the fastest-growing cloud services provider globally, boasts a diverse array of services, including Elastic Cloud Server (ECS), cloud database, cloud security, software development services, and scenario-based solutions. With a vast network of nodes covering over 170 countries and regions, along with a multitude of technical partners and millions of customers worldwide, Huawei Cloud is driving technological advancement and supporting business growth on a global scale.
