News

Meet LiFi: The New Tech Delivering High-Speed Internet Using Light

The cutting-edge innovation offers low latency, stable streaming, and doesn’t force users to compromise with bandwidth.

Published

3 years ago

February 29, 2024

Nour Nasir

meet lifi the new technology delivering high-speed internet using light

pureLiFi

Looking for faster internet than Wi-Fi? Enter LiFi, a groundbreaking technology launched by pureLiFi, a UK-based company, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2024) in Barcelona. This innovative approach to wireless communication utilizes light, offering users low latency and congestion-free experiences for gaming, video conferencing, and media streaming.

Unlike traditional methods like Wi-Fi and 5G, LiFi transmits data wirelessly through light, circumventing common issues such as buffering and signal vulnerability. Ron Schaeffer, pureLiFi’s chief strategy officer, highlighted LiFi’s ease of use and lack of congestion compared to traditional Wi-Fi.

“Just like Wi-Fi access points people have, it is also a plug-and-play. People can plug into a network, and within a few seconds, you have LiFi,” explained Schaeffer.

purelifi lifi cube

“Importantly, it is not subject to congestion like Wi-Fi is. Everyone who would be connected to LiFi will have full bandwidth. For instance, if you are watching a video, someone is on a video call and another person is playing a VR game, you all are competing for Wi-Fi bandwidth. With LiFi, everyone has their own bandwidth. You can take off the Wi-Fi network and put it onto LiFi; the internet experience also improves because it is less congested. So, we say LiFi makes Wi-Fi better,” the Chief Strategy Officer added.

LiFi boasts impressive capabilities, transmitting and receiving 1GB of data per second in each direction, covering an area of up to 50 square meters. Its inherent security benefits, stemming from its inability to pass through walls, make it particularly interesting to security-conscious users.

Also Read: Getting Started With Google Gemini: A Beginner’s Guide

pureLiFi plans to collaborate with telecom providers to deploy its devices in homes and offices. Schaeffer emphasized the company’s potential to revolutionize internet connectivity, citing its vast spectrum availability compared to radio frequencies.

Alistair Banham, CEO of pureLiFi, expressed excitement about LiFi’s ability to address current and future connectivity challenges, including the release of light antennas for various devices: “LiFi is now ready to augment and extend other wireless technologies ushering in a new era of bandwidth, speed and reliable communications,” he said.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.