Siemens Qatar, an affiliate of the global tech giant Siemens AG, is poised to play a significant role in transforming Qatar into a knowledge-based smart society. With its extensive operations in the country, Siemens Qatar is contributing over QR5bn to GDP, which is expected to grow manifold as the company is set to expand its operations to lead in developing Qatar’s smart infrastructure, said a top official of the company, yesterday.
The subsidiary of the German engineering and tech marvel is committed to support Qatar’s efforts in achieving economic diversification and sustainable development. The company is introducing cutting-edge technologies for digitalisation and developing smart infrastructure in the local economy, including power, transport and other sectors, to establish the fourth generation of smart cities, which Siemens Qatar dubbed as ‘City 4.0’ approach.
“Qatar is an emerging market transforming rapidly into a knowledge-based economy. And Siemens, which very much into technology and advancements in technologies towards efficiency improvement, is looking to bring ‘City 4.0’ to Qatar,” Adrian Wood (pictured), CEO of Siemens Qatar, told The Peninsula yesterday.
Wood added: “By doing so we can leverage the efficiency in systems and further improve them. We can bring our experience as a company from other countries into Qatar. This will support Qatar’s 2030 plans, improving efficiency, reducing power consumption and making the city not just more livable but a better place in terms of smart infrastructure, state-of-the-art smart transport system and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.”
The CEO noted that Siemens Qatar is a local company with 60 percent Qatari shareholding, so a lot of its profits go back into country and reinvested in the local economy. Given its strong links with Qatar, the company also gets engaged into training and skill development activities. It provided 15,000 hours of intern training, in addition to a lot of customer training as part of its CSR activities, and committed to give back to the society.
“Being an engineering and tech company, we are very interested in sharing knowledge as there are a lot of new facilities here to be taken care of. So we are committed to contribute in terms of efficiency improvement and asset management,” said Wood.
Siemens believes that digitalization and smart infrastructure are key drivers to helping cities like Doha to provide a high quality of life, prepare for future challenges, and offer an environment that encourages economic growth.
But this needs to happen while also ensuring the conservation and protection of resources such as energy, clean water, and clean air. This is especially important for ambitious cities in growth mode like Doha that are looking to continually improve and expand services and enhance infrastructure. “An intelligent city must be designed around the needs of its people and its resources. This means using data and analytics to enhance quality of life, strengthen society and make cities safer and more livable,” said Wood. “Cities like Doha are already generating data, and the next step is turning big data into smart data. For this we need connectivity – the Internet of Things (IoT),” Wood said.
Siemens also believes that future cities will run on operating systems, collecting and analysing data from city infrastructure to make intelligent decisions, Wood said. Information from buildings, traffic management, power plants, transport networks and even weather forecasts can be integrated and analyzed to improve sustainability and quality of life.
The company is currently collaborating with a number of customers to promote smart buildings in Qatar through the development of a pilot project focusing on the implementation of Siemens’ Navigator technology. Navigator and Demand Flow, analytical building performance tools from Siemens, are able to identify energy and water savings of up to 30 percent.
The software applications that can deliver insights to customers need to operate in a secure and robust environment. That’s the role of MindSphere, an open, cloud-based, operating system for the Internet of Things, from Siemens. MindSphere has already been implemented globally, providing an ideal solution in settings as diverse as sports stadiums and agricultural farms to support intelligent farming solutions.
“When it comes to cities, we implement smart technologies and digitalization to address issues such as urban traffic, water and energy consumption, and city services optimization. Ultimately, we recognise that cities are complex webs of people, systems and infrastructure,” Wood said.
Source from: The Peninsula