Siemens has opened a Smart Cities Experience Center in Egypt, designed to showcase innovations in smart city technologies.

The center, located at Siemens’ head office in Cairo, is reportedly the first of its kind in Egypt and comes as part of the nation’s commitment to championing smart city technology as part of its development plans.

According to Siemens, the center is designed to offer customers an “immersive experience that combines real and digital worlds,” using mixed reality tools to demonstrate smart city technologies and infrastructure, such as energy management, intelligent power distribution solutions and data-driven management systems, for utilities such as water, gas and electricity.

The center’s launch comes as part of Egypt’s digital development strategy, which involves building information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and creating 17 smart cities to help transform Egypt into a “digital society,” the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said.

“The inauguration of Egypt’s first Smart Cities Experience Center … is an important breakthrough that aligns with Egypt’s digital development strategy,” said Mohamed Shaker, Egypt’s minister of electricity and renewable energy. “We encourage the role of the private sector in the state’s comprehensive development process by using all aspects of emerging technologies and innovations to enable a fully integrated and efficient smart city platform.”