stc achieved another milestone in its 5G network development with its partner Huawei after pioneering 5G network deployment in the Middle East in 2019. Today stc announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest integrated oil and Gas Company to launch a joint innovation program for 5G technology and applications utilization in Oil & Gas industry, which will fuel economic growth and societal benefits in the kingdom and around the world.

ARAMCO and stc have reached a consensus that 5G is a key technology to IR4.0 (Industrial Revolution 4.0) digital transformation in the gas and oil industry, and deemed it necessary to make it a priority and undertake further investments in resources to achieve in-depth research and innovation. In this regard, both parties proposed a roadmap of 5G network construction, and services innovations, verifications and deployments for oil and gas industry. This ambitious plan will guide both parties to jointly analyze the application scenarios and requirements of 5G in oil and gas industry, thus, develop and promote relevant innovative solutions. It also aims to greatly promote the application of 5G technologies in regional and global energy industries.

In the next few years, the two parties will jointly explore fast deployment of the enterprise 5G dedicated network for the oil and gas industry, and study the feasibility of the relevant applications in order to finally establish industry digitalization standards for the oil and gas sector.

Both parties will use key technologies such as E2E 5G slicing, Multi-access Edge Computing, and Massive IoT to deploy an enterprise 5G dedicated network and key use cases for Aramco's upstream, middle and downstream production services, such as 3D augmented reality and remote collaboration, smart video surveillance, intelligent security management, machine vision, drone and robot applications, so as to directly drive and serve the digitalization of the oil and gas industry.

Aramco Technical Services Senior Vice-President, Ahmad Al Sa’adi, said: “We recognize 5G is a major enabling technology for digital transformation. Therefore, we will continue to collaborate with local service providers and their partners to co-innovate and develop solutions for new digital use cases and pilot them over 5G networks at our facilities.”

stc VP of Business Development, Dr. Sultan Bin Saeed, said: "Saudi Arabia has entered the acceleration phase of 5G commercialization. In this era of Internet of Everything, 5G networks, thanks to their high speeds, massive connection capabilities and low latency, will become engines of rapid development across industries. Through joint efforts with Aramco, stc, as a trusted digital enabler in the region, will fully leverage the advantages of 5G, AI, and cloud-network synergy to promote innovation and digital transformation, creating new value for the oil and gas industry.”