Bee’ah boosts energy efficiency with Microsoft and Johnson Controls

By Elly Yates-Roberts on 30 April 2019

Sustainability firm Bee’ah is to use technology from Microsoft and technology provider Johnson Controls at its headquarters in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Bee’ah will use Microsoft Azure to enhance the building and firm’s energy efficiency and its employees’ productivity. Using its Digital Vault offering built on Azure, Johnson Controls will work with Microsoft to fit the new building with intelligent edge systems, devices and software. The systems will enhance the firm’s everyday processes, from human resources and customer care to administration and engineering.

“Environmental sustainability and digital technologies are mutually inclusive factors in driving an economy of the future,” said Khaled Al Huraimel, Group CEO of Bee’ah. “Our headquarters embodies our vision for this future and exemplifies the most sustainable solutions and advanced technologies, with no compromise on strategic partnerships, innovation or delivery.

“This will be the first building in the region and one of the first in the world to have full integration with AI to support new seamless experiences for optimisation of efficiencies, performance and functionality.

Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, Bee’ah’s futuristic new headquarters will be powered entirely by renewable energy to have zero net energy consumption. Johnson Controls will deploy a technical infrastructure for the building to monitor its entire environment virtually with Microsoft Azure Digital Twins and IoT technologies. The solution will enable Bee’ah to analyse volumes of data to optimise building operations and efficiency.

“Together with Johnson Controls and Bee’ah, we are driving the digitisation of smarter, more sustainable buildings and spaces,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud + AI at Microsoft. “Bee’ah’s iconic new headquarters will be among the first buildings globally to have end-to-end experiences designed and built on the Azure platform. Azure is the platform that can truly integrate across all the devices, systems and services required for such a large and diverse implementation.

“Microsoft has been able to reduce energy consumption by 20% on our own campus in Redmond by using machine learning on edge devices and in the cloud and we can’t wait to see what Bee’ah is able to do by applying this approach to its ultramodern new headquarters in Sharjah.”