Huawei, a global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, has launched a new joint innovation center (JIC) in Saudi Arabia, together with Saudi Aramco and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM).

Located in Dhahran Techno Valley Innovation Center, the center will be dedicated to the oil and gas industry, jointly working with Saudi Aramco, the world’s leading oil and gas company, and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.

The center is committed to enabling ICT technologies for the Oil and gas industry, leveraging on Huawei technologies and global partners’ expertise to meet customers’ specific requirements.

Huawei is also working with leading partners such as Honeywell, Schlumberger, GE, Yokogawa, SAP, and other leaders to develop solutions with full cooperation.

The opening ceremony at the oil and gas JIC was attended by senior executives from Saudi Aramco, KFUPM, and various partner companies, as well experts from other leading technical, engineering and energy service firms.

“The Middle East is a strategic region for Huawei’s global footprint. We have 15 years of local experience and have become the leading ICT infrastructure provider,” says Yan Lida, president of Huawei’s Enterprise Business Group.

“By understanding the massive transformation happening among different industry customers, Huawei has launched Business Driven ICT Infrastructure (BDII) as a guiding principle of our enterprise business in order to address these challenges,” he said.

Lida added: “Business is the source of power to determine ICT needs and will ultimately drive ICT infrastructure changes. The key to BDII lies in ecosystem-based innovation, which is reflected in three ways — customers’ business innovations, partners’ industrial application innovations, and Huawei’s ICT infrastructure innovations. Huawei will focus on ICT infrastructure that includes cloud computing, pipe, and devices.”

Within Saudi Arabia, Huawei has supported knowledge-sharing initiatives such as its annual seeds for the future education program.