The digital economy is to contribute 10 per cent to national economy by 2040, as per the Oman Economic Vision 2040, but there should be more participation and transformation towards the Big Data and AI to move rapidly to the objective, say experts.
Since 2012, Oman Data Park has been providing services for the public and private sector organisations to preserve data while being hosted in the Sultanate of Oman complying with data confidentiality and cloud security at the same time providing cyber security with 24/7 team operating as well as ensuring the data and infrastructure hosted at Oman Data Park are secure as per local and international standards.
The year 2021 saw the move towards Artificial Intelligence through Nebula AI.
“Nebula AI is able to provide quick infrastructure for any corporate that wishes to deploy AI solutions. For AI applications an infrastructure is needed that provides GPU - graphical processing unit and not the normal CPU - central processing unit. The GPU power is ten times higher than what is provided in our laptops and laptop machine.
We are taking the Sultanate of Oman forward to digital economy space as per Oman Vision 2040,” explained Maqbool al Wahaibi, CEO, Oman Data Park.
According to him, whatever is being done at Oman Data Park is fulfilment of the strategic KPI, key performance indicator that has been set up by 2040 Economic Vision.
The path towards the vision does have challenges and one of them is skill set.
“Getting the right skill set is a challenge especially when we are speaking about futuristic components and applications. For instance, it is not easy to acquire experts in AI in the area of technology or as data scientists. Data scientists are people who can understand data, shape it, interpret it and are able to explain what can be done with the data. So it is more on the analytical part. Finding the expertise is one of the major challenges,” he noted.
Another element is to have the demand higher and that is being mitigated by focusing nationally and not just locally.
It is about time all sectors got onto the wagon of the future, he added.
Al Wahaibi pointed out that cloud is the starting point for any transformation as one cannot be part of the fourth industrial revolution without entering cloud.
“We need to see more seriousness and willingness from all sectors and not just the private sector. There must be more entries from the government sector towards cloud. They can focus more on the core business rather than the IT part of the equation. For instance, the focus could be on using AI for maximising their services to the consumers while outsourcing the IT infrastructure to the right parties.
If everyone understood this equation, then we would be able to move forward rapidly,” he urged.
A concern amongst the corporate is the cost of being part of the cloud.
To that the chief executive officer responded by saying that everyone demands lower prices.
“We listen to them and that is why we have been evolving since the beginning by introducing different options. Today Oman Data Park has four options in cloud services. Each option has its own pricing method. Nebula Lagoon is very cost effective and that is why we are seeing such a huge demand for it. It is engineered to satisfy client expectations. We are still evolving and scrutinizing our pricing method. At the end of the day we want our clients to focus on the value rather than the price. We do not just provide services but secured cloud services as well as manage the infrastructure. We can tailor the services and just in case of any problem, we are in constant engagement with the client not like an off shore service,” explained Maqbool al Wahaibi.
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