Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 48 | Page 17

NEWS Plan to launch Kuwait as regional data centre revealed S alem Al-Uzania, Board Chairman of Kuwait’s Public Authority for Communication and Information Technology, has spoken in favour of transforming Kuwait into a data centre region. sign a deal with the Iraqi Ministry of Communications to establish the Regional Communication Passageway that will connect Iraq with Kuwait and the two countries with Europe. Al-Uzania, in a statement to the Kuwait News Agency, has confirmed that the authority as part of its strategy for the future is seeking to make Kuwait a regional data centre in line with the country’s Vision 2035 blueprint. The project will facilitate data flow from the East to the West, he added. He also revealed that the authority is also planning to establish a national data and information centre. He made the comments on the sidelines of the Huawei Connect 2019 Tech4All Summit which had a theme of ‘How Inclusive Innovation Can Empower the World’. The Kuwaiti Authority will soon During the Huawei event Al-Uzania discussed the regional corridor for communications to be in tandem with China’s Silk Road enterprise. The minister also said that Chinese officials had praised Kuwait’s launch of 5G digital services. ///////////////// Kuwait Airways leverages Honeywell Advanced Software to cut fuel costs K uwait Airways is reducing fuel use through its utilisation of Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency software. The technology is also being deployed at Nippon Cargo Airlines and may reduce fuel costs by up to 3%, saving each airline potentially millions of dollars per year. “Airlines today are trying to meet very tight margins while also improving operational efficiency, and Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency helps on both fronts,” said John Peterson, Vice President and General Manager, Software and Services at Honeywell Connected Enterprise, Aerospace. “We give operators information they can use to develop, implement, sustain and measure fuel-efficiency initiatives.” Fuel use can account for 20% to 40% of an airline’s operating costs, so even single-digit percentage improvements can potentially save airlines tens of millions of dollars each www.intelligentcio.com year. Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency allows airlines to take advantage of new ways to save fuel by impacting the three major influencers of fuel consumption: aircraft weight, engine utilisation and fuel planning. The software collects, cleans and analyses streams of disparate data from a wide variety of sources, and offers actionable insights and alerts that can help improve an airline’s efficiency across its fleet. Kuwait Airways has implemented the software across its fleet of 25 Boeing and Airbus aircraft. n INTELLIGENTCIO 17