Saudi Arabia Spends Huge to Develop into an AI Superpower
On 18th March 2024, a lot more than 200,000 people converged at a mammoth conference in Saudi Arabia, which includes Adam Selipsky, chief executive of Amazon's cloud computing division, who announced a $5.3 billion investment in Saudi Arabia for information centers and artificial intelligence technology. Arvind Krishna, the chief executive of IBM, spoke of what a government minister referred to as a “lifetime friendship” with the kingdom. Executives from Huawei and dozens of other firms made speeches. More than $10 billion in offers have been done there, according to Saudi Arabia's state press agency. “This is a wonderful nation,” Shou Chew, TikTok's chief executive, said for the duration of the conference, heralding the video app's growth in the kingdom. “We anticipate to invest even additional.” Everyone in tech appears to want to make buddies with Saudi Arabia appropriate now as the kingdom has trained its sights on becoming a dominant player in AI — and is pumping in eye-popping sums to do so. Saudi Arabia created a $one hundred billion fund this year to invest in AI and other technology. It is in talks with Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and other investors to put an added $40 billion into AI organizations. In March, the government said it would invest $1 billion in a Silicon Valley-inspired begin-up accelerator to lure AI entrepreneurs to the kingdom. The initiatives quickly dwarf those of most big nation-state investments, like Britain's $100 million pledge for the Alan Turing Institute. The spending blitz stems from a generational effort outlined in 2016 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and recognized as “Vision 2030.” Saudi Arabia is racing to diversify its oil-wealthy economy in places like tech, tourism, culture and sports — investing a reported $200 million a year for the soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and planning a one hundred-mile-extended mirrored skyscraper in the desert. For the tech business, Saudi Arabia has extended been a funding spigot. But the kingdom is now redirecting its oil wealth into constructing a domestic tech market, requiring international firms to establish roots there if they want its income. If Prince Mohammed succeeds, he will place Saudi Arabia in the middle of an escalating international competition among China, the United States and other nations like France that have made breakthroughs in generative AI Combined with AI efforts by its neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia's strategy has the potential to generate a new power center in the international tech sector. “I hereby invite all dreamers, innovators, investors and thinkers to join us, here in the kingdom, to achieve our ambitions together” Prince Mohammed said in a 2020 speech about AI.