Zain and Huawei inaugurate joint innovation centre

Zain and Huawei have inaugurated a first-of-its-kind joint innovation centre in the Middle East, to serve as a research hub from which Zain will be able to further advance its mobile broadband network, services, and applications offered to customers in Kuwait and across the region.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last year, in which they outlined their ambitions for the creation of a joint innovation centre and have since invested in the construction of the facilities, bringing together a team of global experts, engineers, and others to lead the centre’s development.

The centre is set to enhance Zain’s service offerings while helping the operator to realise additional revenues streams. The centre includes various sections dedicated to smart consumer technology, new media services for the home, industry-specific ICT solutions, as well as offerings developed for enterprise customers such as telepresence and other virtualisation platforms.

There are four main areas: Enterprise, home, individual, and Zain Zone. To date Huawei has launched more than 28 joint innovation centres worldwide with telecom operators in addition to 16 global research and development centres.