Saudi Arabia unveils multi-billion-dollar investments in AI

• Saudi Arabia is hosting the LEAP 2025 conference, running until Wednesday.
• Under the theme "Towards New Worlds," the conference highlights the Kingdom's commitment to advanced technology as a core element of Vision 2030.
• Saudi Arabia also unveiled over $14.9 billion in major tech investments with leading global companies.

As part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's efforts to diversify its economic activities, specifically non-oil ones, and within the activities of the LEAP2025 Conference and Exhibition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia announced on the first day investments and projects worth more than $14.9 billion in the artificial intelligence sector. 

Since the first day of the conference that kicked off on Sunday, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia confirmed, through its gathering of global technology and innovation leaders, that it seeks to enhance its position as a major center for digital transformation and an attractive destination for technology investments. 

Major Investments to Strengthen Saudi Arabia’s Position as a Global Tech Hub

The investments announced by the Kingdom were designed to enable the development of digital skills, enhance the growth of emerging companies in the field of technology, and enhance innovation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

The Kingdom also aims through these investments to position it as an attractive environment for leading global technology companies and enhance its position as the largest digital economy in the Middle East and North Africa region. 

Abdullah Al-Sawaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, stated at the conference launch, held under the theme "Towards New Worlds," that these investments align with the objectives of Vision 2030. The key investments announced include the following:

• The announcement by Groq & Aramco Digital of a project to expand cloud computing supported by artificial intelligence, at a cost of about 1.5 billion US dollars. 
• The investment of "Alat" and "Lenovo" companies of about 2 billion dollars to establish an advanced manufacturing and technology center based on artificial intelligence and robotics in the Kingdom, in addition to the opening of Lenovo's regional headquarters in Riyadh. 
• Google revealed its plans to invest in artificial intelligence infrastructure, and to launch a global center for artificial intelligence in Saudi Arabia with the aim of meeting regional and international demand. 
• Investments from global technology companies, such as Qualcomm, Alibaba Cloud, and DataBrix, which pledged to provide solutions to support application developers and enhance data engineering and artificial intelligence expertise to enhance the digital economy in Saudi Arabia. 
• Salesforce allocated 500 million dollars to expand its Hyperforce platform and serve its regional customers from the Kingdom. 
• Tencent Cloud has pledged to invest $150 million to establish its first cloud region in the Middle East, which will be launched in Saudi Arabia with integrated AI capabilities. 
• SambaNova has pledged $140 million to develop advanced AI infrastructure and enhance the Kingdom’s role as a regional innovation hub. In terms of enhancing cloud computing and AI capabilities as well, KKR and Gulf Data Hub have announced a major investment in developing a data center in Saudi Arabia, with a total capacity of 300