Innovation Facilitates Digitization in Central Asia

The digital world and the physical world are increasingly converging, leading us into a world where all things will sense and all things will be connected and intelligent. Global digitization is accelerating at an ever-increasing pace, bringing convenience and sustained growth momentum to governments, enterprises, and individuals. With the digitization wave sweeping around the world, a lack of progress will actual lead to regression for countries in Central Asia. These countries can only make a quantum leap by ensuring continuous innovation, drawing on advanced experience, and building new competitive advantages. Studies have shown that ICT investment has extensive impacts on the economy that go far beyond its direct benefits. This is primarily due to the significant spillover effect it creates. In 2017, Huawei and Oxford Economics jointly released the Digital Spillover report. The report showed that over the past 30 years, every US$1 investment in digital technologies has led to a US$20 rise in GDP. The long-term return on investment (ROI) for digital technologies is 6.7 times that of non-digital investments, and the digital economy has been growing 2.5 times faster than the average global GDP.

An increasing number of countries and regions are recognizing the huge potential of digital technology to drive economic growth. Therefore, more national digital economy strategies are being created and promoted, such as Germany's Industry 4.0, Smart Nation Singapore, and the EU's Horizon 2020. Several Central Asian countries have also publicized their national digital plans, such as Digital Kazakhstan and concept of development of "Digital Uzbekistan" until 2030. However, we have found that the current level of ICT infrastructure in many Central Asian countries is far behind the world average. As a result, most of their current ICT infrastructure cannot meet the requirements for the development of digital economy. If we look at household broadband in these countries as an example, we see that the average household broadband penetration rate is only 23% (except Turkey), dropping to less than 10% in some of them. This is far below the global average of 41.4%. In addition, 79% of all fixed-line household broadband users in these countries have connection speeds of less than 10 Mbit/s.

Huge improvements can still be made in regards to broadband penetration and user experience in Central Asian countries. These countries face serious challenges in terms of the ROI and investment cycle of digital infrastructure, and solving these challenges will require the joint efforts of everyone involved. We would therefore like to call on the governments of countries in the region to creatively utilize their policy tools and make favorable policies in terms of funds, talent, and tax to guide and support ICT development. In this way, governments can help telecom operators overcome the challenges and risks that come with investment, creating a sound environment that facilitates the application of ICT technologies in all industries. For example, thanks to government support, such as favorable spectrum policies, operators in Mongolia have been able to construct 80,000 smart yurts with WTTX technology. With these smart yurts, herdsmen in remote areas can enjoy broadband services as if they lived in cities. This allows the herdsmen to easily obtain market information, complete distance-learning courses, and communicate with friends and family online, ensuring they have a more convenient, digital life.

As an ICT solutions provider, Huawei is committed to helping its customers maximize their infrastructure ROI through technological innovation. For instance, Huawei has developed the RuralStar solution, a low-cost, highly efficient site solution that meets the demands for mobile communications in the remote areas of Central Asia. This solution has increased the efficiency of investments in communications infrastructure in rural areas and improved the mobile coverage in these rural regions. In Belarus, Huawei and BeCloud jointly built G-Cloud, a national data center government cloud. This project has given more than 5,000 public institutions access to cloud services, which has massively improved the efficiency of the government and its public services.

In addition to developing ICT infrastructure, the governments of Central Asian countries also need to improve the digital awareness of enterprises and individuals. These governments need to open up more industry applications, and encourage traditional industries to make business innovations through digital technologies. For example, Huawei's Intelligent Pipeline solution has enabled voice, data, and video transmission through the transmission equipment of Kazakhstan's key gas pipelines. This allows administrators several thousand kilometers away to monitor the operation status of pipelines in real time and collect network operating parameters. With this data available, administrators can prevent faults before they happen and rapidly react to fault alarms. This digitization of gas pipeline management greatly reduces management and operational risks. Another example of digital technology at work is the Intelligent Transportation Phase One project, which involved the deployment of the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) in Dushanbe. This project was highly praised by the Tajikistani president because of the numerous improvements it provided across the city. After the ITS was deployed, the number of serious traffic incidents caused by speeding dropped by 50% within one year. The system has also been instrumental in solving many social security cases, which has made people feel more secure and improved their view of the government.

In an increasingly digital and intelligent world, Huawei has long been committed to cultivating a fertile environment for development by concentrating efforts on ICT infrastructure. Such an environment can help us go digital, automated, and intelligent, ensuring the robust growth of partners' content and applications. Huawei has a popular saying, "absorbing the energy of the universe over a cup of coffee". This means that we should communicate and cooperate more in terms of research on future technologies in order to build an intelligent world of tomorrow. In our eyes, this makes all the reputable enterprises, universities, and research institutions in the region our partners. Recently, Huawei founder Mr. Ren Zhengfei presented a special award to the father of Polar Code – Professor Arikan from Turkey. This award was to recognize his contribution to the advancement of human communications. Huawei knows that theoretic breakthroughs in basic research cannot be achieved overnight and often take decades of focused scientific effort. A country cannot achieve the practical innovation and development of its industries if it does not have an emphasis on basic research and education. Talent is the most important pillar of support for a country's digital strategy, as well as the driving force for innovation and development. As an enabler of digital economy, Huawei has long been committed to cultivating talent for the ICT industry in Central Asian countries. In 2017 alone, Huawei provided training for around 2,000 individuals in the region through the Seeds for the Future program, ICT courses at the HAINA online school, and training and internship programs for university students.

As a major player in the digitization process of Central Asia, Huawei will continue building and improving ICT infrastructure to help operators and industries go digital. We will also continue to partner with universities and research institutions. Together with all partners, we will create a sound digital ecosystem and drive the development of the digital economy in the region. We hope to work with our partners to bring digital to every person, home, and organization in this region for a fully connected and intelligent Central Asia.