Managing data across metaverses
Scheduled to open in the coming months, AD Ports Group’s latest milestone project in KIZAD is set to be one of the largest and most advanced food and healthcare storage hubs in the region
The metaverse has redefined how we live, work, and play. The industry has shown tremendous growth over the past two years, with organisations and brands adopting and investing in virtual worlds. Bloomberg reported that the metaverse market will be valued around $800bn by 2024. And social networks like Facebook, online game makers, and other companies have chipped in for a slice of the pie. It is deemed to be the bridge between the physical world and the virtual realms.
Major global brands, including Nike, Gucci, and Coca-Cola, are also experimenting with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) across metaverse platforms like the Sandbox, Decentraland and Everdome. These brands utilise virtual reality technology to market their merchandise and products to a wider audience. For instance, brands like Gucci and Nike are setting up virtual showrooms to capture the virtual economy. Gucci, for one, launched its collection in the Roblox game, where avatars can purchase limited editions of Gucci merchandise through NFTs.
The younger generation in this space create an enormous customer base for brands and corporations. However, besides the virtual economy, the metaverse also creates a social community, where individuals can interact with each other. But the building blocks of the metaverse dictate how the metaverse will operate, creating a vast digital bazaar of disparate tools, products, and platforms. This means that it will not be owned or controlled by a central entity.
LEVERAGING THE VIRTUAL REALMS The growing integration of NFTs and the metaverse has unlocked new opportunities for brands and individuals. For example, brands can commercialise their merchandise in the virtual realms via NFTs, host seed rounds and virtual events to exhibit artworks and products, and engage with customers via loyalty schemes. Brands also penetrate the metaverse market to introduce their customers to new ideas, experience, and designs.
However, as online game makers, brands, individuals, and social networks find unlimited opportunities in the
Major global brands, including Nike, Gucci, and CocaCola, are also experimenting with non-fungible tokens across metaverse platforms like the Sandbox, Decentraland and Everdome. These brands utilise virtual reality technology to market their merchandise and products to a wider audience”
metaverse, the data capacity keeps burgeoning. The brands’ existence in the metaverse will bring in big data, which will generate levels of data complexity, interoperability, and security concerns. Combining usergenerated content and big data will saturate the space, incresing demand for decentralised database solutions.
GOVERNANCE: DATA PORTABILITY User data currently exists in walled garden environments, where the big tech dictates the rules and conditions. The data doesn’t leave the metaverse, nor is there interoperability within metaverses. However, having data portability privileges and making the environments open-source will enable brands to share with and access other metaverses with ease.
Data portability means that users and brands can move data or transfer digital assets across metaverses seamlessly, and set their own governance policies. Put simply, brands need to access their data anywhere, anytime.
Therefore, brands need to ensure data portability if they intend to create resilience in the near future. It is important for brands to make sure that their customers retain their loyalty. They should also create alternatives to purchasing affordable storage across multiple providers to cut costs.
Other key components to consider for data management in the metaverse include interoperability, data ownership, and security. New ecosystems are being developed to handle the new, complex data pipelines that metaverse creates. A first-mover into this space is IneryDB, a decentralised database management solution. IneryDB enables cross-chain interoperability to connect the disintegrated data within the metaverse and Web3 industries. This will enable brands and individuals to transfer data from one metaverse to another at greater speeds.
The Inery ecosystem solves the issue of data ownership, interoperability, and data portability without compromising security. The decentralised DBMS counterpart incorporates metadata management into its distributed infrastructure to enable complex query searches and access to Web3-specific data from its library.
As the UAE’s leading facilitator of global trade, logistics and industry, AD Ports Group is set to create another significant benchmark for the logistics industry, with the launch of KLP21, one of the largest advanced food and healthcare warehousing and logistics hubs in the region. The hub will be available to customers seeking to leverage its significant capabilities and connectivity to extensive local, regional and international markets, within the third quarter of the year.
STRATEGICALLY LOCATED
Situated in KIZAD, AD Ports Group’s integrated industrial zone located between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, KLP21 will leverage the emirate’s strategic position as a gateway to Asia, Africa and the MENA region. It is also strategically located next to the upcoming ‘Regional Food Hub’ along the main E311 cargo corridor, ensuring direct connectivity to all major destination markets.
Its location also offers KLP21’s customers proximity to five major international airports within a 90-minute driving distance, ports such as Khalifa Port, Zayed Port, and Jebel
Ali Port, and Etihad Rail’s future rail link – all working together to connect customers to a combined marketplace of more than 4.5 billion consumers.
KLP21 has been strategically designed to support the vision of Abu Dhabi’s leadership to establish the emirate as a major global hub for strategic industries including food, life sciences and healthcare.
The UAE has already gained prominence for initiatives such as its National Food Strategy 2051, which aims to put the UAE at the top of the Global Food Security Index, while building international partnerships to diversify food sources, enhance nutrition and introduce legislation to cut waste.
Furthermore, the launch of KLP21 builds on Abu Dhabi’s growth as a global healthcare and life sciences hub, which has worked collaboratively with its partners to attract pharmaceutical research, development and manufacturing to its shores, backed by one of the most extensive cold and ultra-cold pharma supply chains on the market today.
In addition, the hub will also support regional and international fastmoving consumer goods (FMCG), and specialty chemicals sectors.
SCALABLE STORAGE CAPACITY
Two of KLP21’s four advanced
warehouses will be operated by AD Ports Logistics, which already operates over 350,000 square metres of storage space, including its KIZAD-based 19,000-square-metre cold and ultracold storage facility, which has served as the cornerstone of Abu Dhabi’s global efforts against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The landmark facility significantly increases AD Ports Logistics’ current cold and ambient temperature storage capacity and provides international and domestic companies with outstanding opportunities to enter or expand their presence within a region that is primed for sustained growth.
The project has been designed with the latest optimal solutions in mind, including the use of advanced insulation
The high-tech hub has also been developed in-line with the latest HSEQ and ISO standards, which assures customers that their products will be handled according to the highest levels of global regulatory compliance
materials to reflect sunlight; the strategic application of skylights to reduce the need for lighting; recycling of water for irrigation; a centralised refrigeration system; and the use of primary, backup, and solar power supplies. The high-tech hub has also been developed in-line with the latest HSEQ and ISO standards, which assures customers that their products will be handled according to the highest levels of global regulatory compliance. The hub’s four warehouses which total more than 80,000 square metres of combined space will be able to accommodate over 100,000 pallets across a network of chambers which can be independently configured to a range of sizes and temperatures, including -26°C to 25°C. The two warehouses operated by AD Ports Logistics span 40,000 square metres and can hold 60,000 pallets, which will be managed by an advanced highcapacity VNA mobile racking system that is capable of accommodating products of varying sizes.
BROAD SPECTRUM OF ENDTO-END SERVICES
Among the many benefits available to customers at KLP21, AD Ports Logistics will offer a full suite of services, including: leasing, thirdparty logistics (3PL), fourth-party logistics (4PL), regional logistics hub operations, and value-added services.
The hub will also be served by a fleet of over 400 transport vehicles, operated by MICCO Logistics, and a network of logistics partners, both domestic and international.
Furthermore, one of the hub’s major advantages is that it offers accessibility to AD Ports Group’s broad portfolio of trade and logistics services, which are capable of supporting customers’ products from their point of manufacture to the point of delivery – all through a single point of entry.
Specifically, customers of KLP21 will have the opportunity to access the group’s broad portfolio of trade and logistics services, including free zone and industrial zone services, warehousing, freight forwarding and land transport, port and maritime services, air freight via AD Ports Group’s partners, and final mile deliveries.
Most importantly, the addition is timely given the recent shift in global supply chains towards more robust near-shore and on-shore sourcing of strategic goods and supplies, which KLP21 is in an excellent position to provide.
The new hub will also respond to increasing customer demand for temperature-controlled storage solutions to support the safe and efficient product distribution in the UAE and across the wider region.
AD Ports Logistics is now ready to engage with potential customers to discuss how the facility can add value to, and serve, their needs.
AD Ports Logistics will offer a full suite of services, including: leasing, third-party logistics (3PL), fourth-party logistics (4PL), regional logistics hub operations, and value-added services