Saudi Aramco Development Company, a subsidiary of state oil giant Aramco, said it has joined hands with Google Cloud to offer high-performance, low-latency cloud services to customers in the kingdom. The kingdom is being added to the global network of Google Cloud Platform regions, as part of a strategic alliance agreement signed between the company and Google Cloud this month.
Under this deal, Google Cloud will establish and operate a new cloud
region in Saudi Arabia, while a new company will be formed following all
required regulatory clearances to supply cloud solutions and services
to customers, with an emphasis on businesses inside Saudi Arabia.
This
new cloud region will allow organizations nationwide to grow and scale
their offerings, while delivering digital products and services faster
and more reliably.
The collaboration taps into rapidly
expanding cloud services demand in Saudi Arabia, which is forecasted to
reach a market opportunity up to $10 billion by 2030.
Increased
dependence on online services during the Covid-19 pandemic has further
accelerated the shift toward digital solutions. The rollout of Google
Cloud services and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia will deliver a robust,
reliable and agile solutions to meet growing demand for IT and cloud
services.
Aramco Senior VP (Technical Services) Ahmad Al Sa’adi,
said: "We live in a world driven by data, and it is essential that
companies not only have secure infrastructure to protect enterprise
data, but also the tools that enable them to make the best use of it."
"Bringing
Google Cloud to Saudi Arabia will deliver significant benefits, both
now and in the future, and we are grateful to the Ministry of
Communications and Information Technology for supporting this
initiative. The future of Saudi Arabia’s business transformation and
growth depends on its ability to successfully leverage cloud services,
he added.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said: "We are committed
to helping businesses modernize and accelerate their digital
transformations with Google Cloud."
"With this agreement, Google
Cloud's innovative technology and solutions will be available to global
customers and enterprises in Saudi Arabia to enable them to better
serve end consumers," he stated.
According to him, Google Cloud
offers its customers multiple solutions, including artificial
intelligence, smart analytics, data management, security, infrastructure
and application modernization. It delivers these services globally
while matching 100 percent of the energy used to power its operations
with renewable energy, he added.
(TradeArabia News Service, December 21, 2020)
