Cognitive technology (also known as artificial intelligence) could be part of the DNA of businesses in all sectors in the UAE and the overall Middle East and North Africa (Mena) in the next few years, according to a Mubadala top spokesperson.
Mounir Barakat, executive director of Information and Communications Technology at Mubadala , said that some of the region’s industries such as healthcare, education, oil and gas, and aviation are on their way to start integrating cognitive systems into their business.
This would help raise efficiency, reduce mortality in the healthcare sector, and provide more personalised learning experiences for students in the education sector.
Barakat was speaking at an event on Monday to announce the launch of a company called Cognit Technology Solutions, which is the result of a partnership between Mubadala , the Abu Dhabi-based investment company, and IBM , the American technology company.
Cognit is set to help provide IBM’s computing system, Watson, to organisations in the Mena region, and support entrepreneurs, app developers, and startups that are creating Watson apps and services. Cognit is now the exclusive provider for IBM Watson in the Mena region.
Watson came into prominence in the US in 2011 when it defeated two top contestants in the game show, Jeopardy!, signalling the emergence of a new computing system that could process information similarly to humans, reason, and understand natural language.
Today, Watson is being utilised in the health-care sector in the US specifically in oncology to help treat cancer patients.
During the event in Abu Dhabi, representatives from the Dubai Municipality, Abu Dhabi Education Council, and Tawam Hospital said they had laid out a vision to transform their organisations using cognitive computing.
“The collaboration with IBM to bring Watson applications to the region is aligned to the UAE’s strategic goal and vision to become a knowledge-based economy. Establishing this joint venture is a definitive reflection of Mubadala’s strategy to foster long-term economic growth and deliver world-class solutions to the Mena region,” Barakat said.
The partnership with Mubadala will allow IBM “to grow Watson at a much more accelerated pace,” according to Brian Mulada, IBM Watson’s chief financial officer, who said that the company is now working on introducing Watson in Arabic. Watson is expected to be able to start ‘thinking’ in Arabic in the first quarter of 2016.
“The Mena region is primed for this type of technology. Since introducing Watson through local client engagements, we’ve seen a strong response, and look forward to broadening cognitive adoption by growing the Watson ecosystem through Cognit.