Quite aside from the head-spinning speeds that Formula One cars reach around the Yas Marina Circuit, the numbers behind staging the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix are staggering. More than 500 tonnes of team equipment has been flown into Abu Dhabi from the previous round in Brazil; a total of 8,550 litres of paint are used to get the track up to scratch; 30 hectares of landscape grass is laid. But have you ever thought about the huge operation required to broadcast the race and transmit the reams of data teams require to optimise their cars? That’s where F1’s official connectivity partner, Tata Communications, comes in.
For the past five years, it has been behind joining the dots for the world’s top motorsport series, via their 500,000-kilometre worldwide submarine cable network. The company claims to handle one in 10 of all international calls and connect 70 per cent of the world’s mobile carriers. The amount of data required to keep F1 running smoothly is similarly intimidating.
“We provide a whole range of services to Formula One management, from connectivity services at all the racetracks to the Formula One offices in the UK,” Tata’s vice president, F1 business and product marketing, Mehul Kapadia, explains. “We provide the physical wired connectivity to the racetracks, and that opens up possibilities for them to run a whole range of services on it. We provide the base connectivity on which their data, video and a lot of the content flows through. We also host Formula1.com.
“We also work with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team, the current world champions; and a range of broadcasters, from Sky Sports in the UK to Ziggo in the Netherlands. So it’s a nice mix of the people who run the sport, people who are winning the sport and a bunch of broadcasters.”
Much as home and office internet connections have improved at a headlong rate, F1’s technological leaps and bounds have also been significant.
“Before we came into Formula One, they used data connectivity that was less than pretty much the average broadband connection in the UK – about 10 megs [megabits],” Kapadia says. “We now deliver about one-and-a-half gigabits of bandwidth – 1,000 times what somebody would use on average at home in terms of speeds. That’s because of the humungous amount of data and video that needs to go through it, weekend after weekend.”
A week before the Abu Dhabi race, Tata’s team touched down in the capital, direct from Brazil, for the final stop of the season – then the hard work really starts.
“It’s pretty much a mini data centre that we set up from location to location,” Kapadia says. “It involves the physical connectivity coming through our local partners where we need it, then on top of it, we build this set-up which allows for two things: to run the services – data, video and voice – but more importantly, monitor it from the racetrack. We can monitor, troubleshoot, enhance and modify the services.”
As an official Mercedes team partner, Tata is guaranteed to be on the victorious side this weekend, whether the drivers’ championship is won by Nico Rosberg or Lewis Hamilton, after two titles in a row for the British driver.
“I couldn’t be more pleased,” Kapadia says. “We joined Mercedes in 2013, when Lewis Hamilton joined them as well, and it’s been fantastic. At that time, they were No 4 on the grid. We’ve really enjoyed being a part of the success that has built over the last three years.
“When we came onboard with Mercedes, we gave them three times the connectivity they had before. Data and analytics has become a critical part of the sport. Mercedes can get about 60 to 65 engineers to every race, but have a team of about 600 back in Brackley [the team’s British headquarters]. Each car has about 200 sensors updating thousands of data points as it goes round the track. We pick up all that data, [and] get it to the UK, where it can be analysed in real time.
“There are various components that make successful teams and this is one small component of that journey.”
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
ELECTION%20RESULTS
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MATCH INFO
World Cup qualifier
Thailand 2 (Dangda 26', Panya 51')
UAE 1 (Mabkhout 45 2')
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Constant Variable (CVT)
Power: 141bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: Dh64,500
On sale: Now
MATCH INFO
Bangla Tigers 108-5 (10 ovs)
Ingram 37, Rossouw 26, Pretorius 2-10
Deccan Gladiators 109-4 (9.5 ovs)
Watson 41, Devcich 27, Wiese 2-15
Gladiators win by six wickets
The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat & Other Stories From the North
Edited and Introduced by Sjón and Ted Hodgkinson
Pushkin Press
A State of Passion
Directors: Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi
Stars: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Rating: 4/5
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Where to apply
Applicants should send their completed applications - CV, covering letter, sample(s) of your work, letter of recommendation - to Nick March, Assistant Editor in Chief at The National and UAE programme administrator for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, by 5pm on April 30, 2020.
Please send applications to nmarch@thenational.ae and please mark the subject line as “Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism (UAE programme application)”.
The local advisory board will consider all applications and will interview a short list of candidates in Abu Dhabi in June 2020. Successful candidates will be informed before July 30, 2020.
What is hepatitis?
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver, which can lead to fibrosis (scarring), cirrhosis or liver cancer.
There are 5 main hepatitis viruses, referred to as types A, B, C, D and E.
Hepatitis C is mostly transmitted through exposure to infective blood. This can occur through blood transfusions, contaminated injections during medical procedures, and through injecting drugs. Sexual transmission is also possible, but is much less common.
People infected with hepatitis C experience few or no symptoms, meaning they can live with the virus for years without being diagnosed. This delay in treatment can increase the risk of significant liver damage.
There are an estimated 170 million carriers of Hepatitis C around the world.
The virus causes approximately 399,000 fatalities each year worldwide, according to WHO.
