Dubai Circuit Design (DCD), Dubai’s government-backed IC design house, is looking for links with fabless semiconductor companies in Europe and the US as it expands its design capabilities.
Asked why companies should come to Dubai for help with their IC designs rather than India, Syed Thameem, project manager for DCD replied: “Our cost structure is better, and the IP protection laws are much stronger in Dubai than in India.”
Thameem spoke to EW earlier today during the International Electronics Forum 2008 in Dubai. Asked how many IC designers DCD now has, Thameem replied: “Ten. But we are getting applications from IC designers from all over the world.”
Asked why people wanted to come to Dubai, Thameem said there were very good tax incentives and an excellent standard of living. For instance, DCD’s parent organization, the Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), provides special accommodation for its people to get round the high cost of housing in Dubai.
The chairman of DSO, Sheik Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, opened the IEF2008 this morning and said that the aim of his nephew, the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, was that Dubai should move: “To a whole new level of achievement, the knowledge-based economy.”
To that end, the DSO is offering companies which locate in Dubai a 49 year guarantee of zero corporate tax rates. It is also building up high-tech educational capabilities with moves like attracting a branch of the Rochester Institute of Technology.
The local ICT market is beginning to reach critical mass. According to Dubai’s minister for the economy, Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, who also spoke at IEF2008, the local ICT market is worth US$2bn and growing at over 10 per cent a year.
“We are creating an environment which will attract the best brains to live and work”, said Dr Jihad Kiwan, CTO of the DSO, “the Middle East is a growing market, and the companies (in DSO) will have easy access to that and also the emerging markets in the Pan-Asia and African regions.”