Increasing future readiness and competence are two recurring themes driving the UAE's initiatives in business and industry. Policymakers have highlighted digitization as the major way of achieving these goals in recent years. The introduction of more than 130 smart ventures and 1,000 smart government services under the Smart Dubai umbrella exemplifies this digital-led strategy. The UAE is also the Middle East's leader in ICT investments.

Such advances have resulted in Dubai being among the world's top 50 smart cities, the beating of rival cities such as Seoul and Paris. However, because digital transformation is a journey rather than an endpoint, initiatives to further solidify the UAE's position amid future-ready economies must be ongoing and changing.

Real estate, together with its dimensions such as building automation, energy, maintenance, etc, is a major component of this agenda. Recently, the real estate industry was being set to add more value to the UAE's digital transformation path, due to increased relationships between prominent local service companies and worldwide organizations. One such example is Dubai-based Netix Global BV becoming a Gold Member of the prestigious BACnet industry group.

“Netix is a rapidly growing firm that will continue to be affiliated with customized and globally-accepted testing organizations like BACnet International,” said Sanjeev Bhatia, CEO of Netix Global BV, in an interview with Gulf Today.

Around 150 top building network operators are members of the BACnet International group, which has vowed to promote and support the BACnet Standard produced by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), whose credibility in the HVAC industry is unrivaled. “This relationship provides the required confidence and quick acceptance to consumers and stakeholders, particularly in fresh markets,” Sanjeev said.

“Netflix is an excellent match for the BACnet Global community,” stated Andy McMillan, President and Managing Director of BACnet International. “They are leveraging emerging technologies to boost building automation skills in data analytics and power management, both of which are crucial to successfully and efficiently managing facilities in smart city solutions.”

Compatible with McMillan's opinion is the necessary to improve building automation abilities, particularly in energy portfolios, given that buildings account for 40% of global energy usage and GHG pollutions.  Any intervention aimed at reducing this footprint must prioritize HVAC and lighting systems, which account for roughly 70% of the energy used in multi-family complexes and large-scale CRE on average. That's why Netflix's membership in HVAC-focused groups such as BACnet and ASHRAE may support the UAE's de-carbonization and sustainability initiatives.

Transformation of conventional to data-driven procedures: HVAC is a focus point in commercial real estate energy-saving efforts, and operators must consider several factors: Heat exchangers, blowers, coils, and compressors, etc. Only when all of these components work properly can holistic efficiency be attained. Even minor failures and abnormalities can accumulate and contribute to higher energy usage and pollution.

And the average multi-family residential property contains hundreds of different HVAC systems and components from many vendors. Under these conditions, enhancement is only achievable through IoT incorporation and data collection from each system, allowing for optimal maintenance and ongoing efficiency gains.

“Band-aid remedies to each challenge as it arises are a prescription for future disaster,” Sanjeev Bhatia stated. “To assure maximum adherence to sustainability standards and achieve life-cycle efficiency in HVAC systems, we need to connect multi-vendor subsystems, provide real-time monitoring, undertake preventative maintenance, and create open-protocol ecology in buildings,” he added.

The implication is that older systems with vendor-specific protocols and lock-ins are inefficient in energy-intensive areas like HVAC. Instead, building operators may implement full-stack solutions that leverage IoT, AI, and ML technologies to guarantee that every automation system is always functioning at peak performance.

Operators may centralize all system under control, gather data, evaluate it, and generate insights that might lead to data-driven management. An ecosystem like this substitutes manual procedures with characteristics like ML-based fault detection and diagnostics, which uncover the fundamental causes of inadequacies and corrects them before they become larger problems.