Tuesday 23 / April / 2024
Muscat: Oman Data Park (ODP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology (MTCIT), organised a workshop on Nebula AI at Muscat Novotel Hotel.
It highlighted the Sultanate’s infrastructure readiness for Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an embodiment of Oman’s Vision 2040, and the digital transformation strategy announced by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, which aim at promoting and accelerating the digital transformation of the government sectors and services in Oman in line with the global technical development.
Above 30 ministries, authorities and establishments participated in the workshop.
The workshop targeting all government entities came within the framework of ODP’s national efforts that aim at contributing to accelerating the Sultanate digital transformation, through utilising the Artificial Intelligence applications (AI) and the cost-effective and efficient support available through Oman Data Park’s Nebula AI infrastructure which is powered by Nvidia and hosted in Oman.
The delivered content of the workshop included an AI transformation roadmap for government entities, their cyber security solutions, a framework for creating an AI project within the public sector and highlighted the action of the national programme for adopting Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technologies in the Sultanate.
The holding of the workshop comes in light of the Sultanate’s interest in accelerating the adoption of Artificial Intelligence, while the Sultanate has designated a National Programme for Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technologies in the year 2020, within the Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technology (MTCIT).
In his welcoming speech at the opening of the workshop, Eng. Maqbool Al Wahaibi, CEO of Oman Data Park, stressed that the holding of this workshop is considered as an embodiment of Oman Data Park’s efforts to contribute to the success of the Sultanate’s National Program for Artificial Intelligence. Nebula AI aims at enhancing the productivity of the targeted sectors for economic diversification, improving the human resources capabilities in Artificial Intelligence, adopting Artificial Intelligence applications in the infrastructure sectors, and the governance of Artificial Intelligence applications and advanced technologies in accordance with a human-centred vision.
ODP’s partnership with Nvidia gives the ability for Government and private entities in Oman to avail world’s best processing equipment and technologies in the field of AI. Oman now has the best Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning capabilities online and hosted in Oman and ODP can tailor the required AI applications for different verticals. Furthermore, the given technologies are available on an OPEX model enabling cost-effective implementation for the entity, and ODP also offers plug and play AI solutions for many verticals.
Al-Wahaibi added that ODP’s keenness to provide its services to the public sector is backed by the confidence of government entities in the professionalism of Oman Data Park in providing various solutions related to Artificial Intelligence, Cloud services, Web hosting, and Cyber Security services, including their Security Operations Center services (SOC) and Network Operations Center services (NOC) which are operated around the clock, seven days a week.
In the same context, Al Wahaibi affirmed Oman Data Park’s capabilities to provide its specialised professional services to the various administrative units of government agencies in the Sultanate in the cloud services fields and security assessment services, that aim at identifying, evaluating technical weaknesses, and setting preventive measures to protect them from external and internal cyber threats related to information technology.
Eng. Khalil Al Maawali, a member of the National Program for Artificial Intelligence team, gave a visual presentation highlighting the Sultanate’s integrated national action plan for Artificial Intelligence and advanced technologies. His session explained the activities under this national action plan including, the setting of policies and legislation to adopt AI and advanced technologies, including capacity-building, research, innovation, industrialisation, investment, and supporting the establishment of emerging companies.
The integrated national action plan for Artificial Intelligence and advanced technologies in the Sultanate also includes coordination and cooperation between stakeholders in the public, private and academic sectors, to share requirements related to Artificial Intelligence and advanced technologies, integrating with existing projects and initiatives, and coordinating with local and advanced international organisations and bodies related to the concerned topics.
