Introduction to Quant

Despite being a global leader in wealth and a preferred destination for property investors, Saudi Arabia has historically lacked comprehensive data in the real estate sector. Ahmed Bukhamseen, founder of Quant, recognized this gap and set out to revolutionize the property investment market by making pricing information accessible to buyers, speculators, and investors.

The Vision Behind Quant

At its core, Quant relies heavily on data, including advertised and realized prices, mapping, construction plans, geo-spatial data, and imagery. In a recent interview at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Ahmed discussed the company’s vision and journey. The conversation began with the choice of data platform, which is the foundation of the business.

Data Protection and Compliance

Ahmed explained, "Our primary challenge was to comply with data protection regulations. Saudi Arabia has implemented new laws similar to GDPR, overseen by the Saudi Data and AI Authority. To meet these requirements, we needed a local host for data protection, which led us to move away from Azure and back to Saudi."

Partnership with Huawei

Although Huawei is a major player in the Middle East, Africa, and APAC regions, it wasn’t an immediate choice for Quant. Ahmed discovered Huawei’s cloud services about a year ago and began comparing them to other options. As Quant’s business model evolved, so did its requirements. Initially, the company relied on data from Saudi municipal registries, but it has since enriched this core information with local data and high-resolution satellite imagery.

Scalability and Data Storage

Ahmed noted, "We were initially using a data center, and the data had to be transferred from Saudi to Europe and back. We were running AI on the edge, processing images without storing them. However, with new use cases, we needed to store data before and after processing, which resulted in significant costs that we didn’t anticipate."

Imagery and Data Processing

The company was pulling down detailed images from satellites every two weeks, and it’s now planning to increase the frequency to daily. Ahmed explained, "We started testing Huawei’s services, particularly in terms of latency, as we stream high-volume data and want our mobile app users to have a seamless experience."

The Quant App

The Quant app opens up the property market to a wide range of users, from individuals buying their first home to portfolio managers, investors, landlords, and renters. The app combines various data sources, including property prices, maps, satellite imagery, and government-approved planning documents, to provide users with comprehensive information for buying and selling property.

Future Developments

Quant plans to revise and enrich its data, adding value for its clients. Ahmed mentioned, "We need to develop specific feature detection or object detection. For example, municipality data may indicate zoning for a warehouse or extension, but we can use satellite imagery to determine the actual building plan."

Collaboration with Huawei

Although Quant has the technical capabilities to build its own models, it’s partnering with Huawei to accelerate development. Ahmed stated, "With our new development, computing the model ourselves would take six months to deploy. Now, it takes just four hours, and we run it every week."

Expanding Services

Quant’s plans include a service for retailers to identify optimal store locations based on neighborhood demographics. The company is also exploring a project to extend its data scope to the rental market.

Growth and Investment

Given Saudi Arabia’s rapid development, Quant and its partner Huawei must move quickly. Ahmed emphasized, "We want to see significant returns on real estate investments, similar to the Bitcoin market. Foreign investors will be able to buy property or land with just the touch of a button, and they need data to make informed decisions."

Conclusion

The Quant app can be downloaded, and more information about the company can be found on its website. Additionally, Huawei’s service offerings for Saudi Arabia and beyond can be explored. (Image source: European Space Agency, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.)