Microsoft was visited by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum this afternoon at the firm’s Hall 7 stand, where it is exhibiting its broad solutions portfolio, chief among them its AI products and services.
The firm has moved swiftly to prioritise its investment in artificial intelligence over the last year, having launched an AI and Research Group at its Redmond, Washington headquarters.
The UAE’s Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, meanwhile, was shown one of the firm’s main solutions that can drive on-site safety through the use of surveillance cameras, AI and cloud.
Microsoft Gulf’s regional general manager Sayed Hashish was delighted to welcome His Highness, and said the firm’s efforts are driving the “democratisation of AI”.
“Our demo can apply to any industry, but the safety piece is critical,” he said. “The artificial intelligence in the solution can identify people and objects, and allows alerts to be set up that are triggered if unauthorised people enter certain areas of a site, or if they are using inappropriate safety equipment.”
Hashish added that artificial intelligence is becoming core not only to Microsoft, but the technology world at large. “It’s critical to both the intelligence cloud and intelligent edge,” he said. “We’ve embedded AI into Azure and Azure Stack, and that’s hugely important to us going forward.”
Having taken on the general manager role just over three months ago, Hashish is hugely excited to be playing a part at this point of Microsoft’s journey. “It’s hugely exciting to be involved at a time when we are refocusing the ways we work,” he said. “Microsoft’s at an all-time high from a strategy and innovation point of view, and I’m delighted to be playing this role in our GCC efforts.”
