Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 31 | Page 75

INTELLIGENT INTELLIGENT BRANDS BRANDS // Data // Centres Cabling How the MEA can embrace the changing status quo ///////////////////////////// Ehab Kanary, Vice President, Enterprise Sales, Middle East and Africa, Commscope, shares his insight on how the data centre industry can prepare for the future with constant change becoming the new status quo. Ehab Kanary, Vice President, Enterprise Sales, Middle East and Africa I n places like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the government is reimagining what transportation and education will look like in the future. They’ve appointed the world’s first Minister for Artificial Intelligence and more than half a million people from 22 countries have applied to participate in the One Million Arab Coders programme. My colleagues and I are debating whether or not flying cabs may soon be a reality. Constant change is the status quo across the Middle East and Africa (MEA). And we’re seeing change in the world of data centres. The machines are coming. The Middle East and Africa will see a six-fold growth in IP traffic from 2015 to 2020, according to Cisco. Billions of machines are required to keep these connections running, and by talking to each other, they put an extreme amount of stress on any network. With 5G coming to market in the next five to 10 years, and IDC predicting that the market WHERE DATA CENTRES ONCE SIMPLY ACTED AS STORAGE UNITS FOR DATA, THEY NOW COMPUTE, ANALYSE AND PROCESS INFORMATION, www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 75