Tata Communications has partnered mobile telecommunications and digital services provider Zain KSA to bring smart-city technology to Saudi Arabia.

With this collaboration the combined ecosystems could deliver platforms to remodel cities with smart street lighting, smart waste management, connected workplace, healthcare and connected cars.

The flagship project sees Tata and Zain working together to bring smart street lighting for one of the key cities in Saudi Arabia. Tata’s IoT ecosystem will serve as one-stop-shop to provide the hardware, platform, application and insights while Zain will expand the footprint with its business-to-business 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 IoT enabling smart waste handling, smart metering and other smart city use cases.

“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 for the Middle East, central Asia and Africa at Tata Communications. “This is a demonstration of both our organisations’ commitment to enable reimagining of cities in the Middle East by operating on smarter and cost-efficient models. 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.”

Saad Al-Sadhan, chief business officer at Zain, 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 offering and transformation services under one roof to enterprises and governments across the kingdom. The confluence of reliable connectivity, agility and trust will converge to better serve communities, businesses and governments. Together we will strengthen the digital core of the country to reinforce Saudi Vision 2030 and provide businesses the tools to embrace innovation and disruption to succeed in a rapidly evolving environment.”

The Tata and Zain engagement aims to serve Saudi’s enterprises and government institutions with technologies such as IoT, 5G, LoRaWan, managed security services and SD-WAN. It will also support environmental sustainability measures and digital transformation of the region.

Zain KSA is a telecoms provider established in Saudi Arabia in 2008 as a listed company. The company established itself as a telecoms operator and a digital service provider whose services include telecoms, 5G network, digital payment, cloud computing, IoT, fibre and drones.