Expo 2020 Dubai

Connecting minds, creating the future

Expo 2020 Dubai was the largest event of its kind to be held in Dubai, a city no stranger to biggest and best. The showcase of global ideas and innovation was postponed by one year because of COVID-19 and then held over six months, from late 2021 to March 2022.

The event was built around the themes of "connecting minds and creating the future." It proved a hit with residents and tourists. Expo 2020 Dubai attracted 24.1 million visitors from 178 countries, 30 percent of whom came from overseas.

"Expo 2020 Dubai was an opportunity to bring the world together in a spirit of hope and optimism," says Taif Muhsin, vice president, integrated operations, innovation, and future technology. "We wanted to help shape a better, post-pandemic future by inspiring new and exciting solutions to overcome some of the world's most challenging issues."

Visitor numbers aside, the goal was to create the most connected, inclusive, and engaging experiences. Dubai recognized this as an opportunity to showcase the diversity and innovation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to leave a legacy on the city and its people.

Most visibly, the event would see an impressive array of country pavilions. Each involved stunning architecture and housed exhibitions from participating countries. Less visibly, the entire 4.38-square-kilonmeter site required a secure, robust network infrastructure. The organizers wanted to run ticketing, content, security, wayfinding, and host other critical applications off the network. 

Specifically, they insisted on seamless Wi-Fi throughout the event. There should be mobile working for operations teams, secure data management, and proactive network management. Crucially, Expo 2020 Dubai didn't want to recruit—and then disband—an entire network team to design, build and operate the network. They wanted to hand the network over to one partner capable of delivering an end-to-end experience.

Collaboration throughout 2000 days

Cisco was appointed in April 2018 to build and manage the entire network. This was the largest collaboration project ever undertaken by Cisco in this region, involving more than 2000 days of coworking and more than 250 project managers and engineers on site.

"We wanted to build one of the largest, most reliable, and advanced networks in the region; we therefore had to partner with a global network technology leader: Cisco," explains Taif Muhsin.

The result was the largest network deployment in the region. The site was blanketed in 8645 access points, including 453 Wi-Fi 6 access points, making Expo 2020 Dubai the first in the region to deploy Wi-Fi 6.

Webex by Cisco brought mobile working through Webex Meetings and Webex Calling. It was one of the largest deployments of Webex in the Middle East, with more than 2000 users, including Expo 2020 Dubai employees and partners. With Cisco devices, event staff experienced exceptional video conferencing and co-creation no matter their location.

In addition, every display screen onsite was then powered by Cisco's IPTV Technology. This supported more than 50 Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) channels, and high-definition branding, advertising, and wayfinding content was pushed to 430 screens.

Throughout the six months of Expo 2020 Dubai, a dedicated, 100-strong Cisco team managed the network from an onsite network operations center. The network operations team had visibility across the technology stack, providing insight and determining action. In particular, it enabled Expo 2020 Dubai to optimize application performance, improving the guest experience across the event.

"Cisco operational support model, that seamlessly engaged both onsite and global Cisco support, was essential to ensure running such complex and large network," explains Taif Muhsin.

Enabling robot food delivery and facial recognition

The engagement with Cisco helped to ensure the network ran smoothly across the event, allowing a host of critical applications to work effectively, from food delivery robots to vehicle recognition cameras. By Cisco's calculations, more than three million hours were spent on the network's design, implementation, and support over three years.

"Expo 2020's state-of-the-art network was designed with the highest levels of optimized redundancy to ensure the highest uptime with the minimum cost," adds Taif Muhsin.

Across the event, the network returned impressive performance numbers. The total number of connections to the Wi-Fi network exceeded three million, with a peak of 277,000 on one day. More than 5000 Expo 2020 Dubai workers connected each day on a dedicated workforce network. More than 1700 payment terminals, from food and beverage and merchandise stalls, were connected.

Cisco's IPTV Technology delivered 230,000 hours of content across the event, including live streaming.

In terms of security, Cisco created a dedicated network for Dubai Police Force. This enabled face and vehicle recognition and allowed a real-time link to the automatic entry points and 15,000 closed-circuit televisions across the site.

Cisco's end-to-end approach helped to ensure the network infrastructure was in place against pressing delivery times. Cisco also helped to ensure the network resources were used as sustainably as possible. Around 80 percent of the physical infrastructure built for Expo 2020 Dubai will be reused, including the entire Cisco network.

Post-event, Dubai plans to transform the US$8 billion site in a new, "15-minute" neighborhood, a residential community with a focus on walking and cycling. The network will support the use of autonomous vehicles and a ride sharing app for communal transport.

"The Expo 2020 site will have a long-term future. After Expo, a human-centric smart city called Expo City rises," says Taif Muhsin. "It's an integrated mixed-use community, it will keep carrying the flag of connect, create, and innovate."