Tata Communications & Zain to develop smart city solutions in Saudi Arabia

Mumbai-based Tata Communications and and Saudi Arabian telecom services provider Zain KSA entered into a strategic engagement to bring smart city solutions to Saudi Arabia, the companies said in a joint statement Tuesday.

"With this collaboration the combined ecosystems will deliver solutions and platforms to remodel cities with smart street lighting, smart waste management, connected workplace, healthcare and connected cars," Tata Communications said as per the statement issued to the stock exchange.

In the flagship project where both companies are working together to bring smart street lighting solution for one of the key cities, Tata Communications' IoT ecosystem  

will serve as one-stop-shop to provide the hardware, platform, application and insights while Zain KSA will expand the footprint with its business-to-business (B2B) offerings through joint projects related to software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and global contact centres, as well as the application of smart transport and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions enabling smart waste handling, smart metering and other smart city use cases, the companies said.

Tata Communications scrip was 1.43% down to Rs 1425.85 as of Tuesday noon, on the Bombay Stock Exchange. 

“The strength of the reach of Zain KSA and cutting-edge infrastructure combined with our ecosystem of advanced technologies will strengthen the country’s shift to becoming a sustainable economy,” said Vaneet Mehta, region head, Middle East, Central Asia & Africa, Tata Communications.

This is a milestone project for Tata Communications for transforming the city into an intelligent and energy efficient metropolis, reducing its carbon footprint and charting the path for other cities to replicate, he added.

“Building on our pioneering and internationally renowned 5G network and in line with our vertical expansion strategy to drive 5G applications such as IoT we will work together to contribute to our comprehensive digital solutions offering and transformation services under one  

roof to enterprises and governments across the kingdom,” said Eng. Saad A. Al-Sadhan, chief business and wholesale officer, Zain KSA.

The Tata Communications and Zain KSA strategic engagement will serve Saudi’s enterprises and government institutions with advanced technologies such as IoT, 5G, low range wide area network, Managed Security Services, SDWAN and many others. It will also support environmental sustainability measures and digital transformation of the region.