DAVOS: Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as a leading global partner in the next wave of technological transformation, as the Kingdom ramps up international tech partnerships to fuel innovation and diversify its economy beyond oil.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Abdullah Al-Swaha, Saudi Arabia’s minister of communication and information technology, said the Kingdom aims to “energise the intelligent age” and help unlock the next phase of global economic expansion.
“We want to help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age,” Al-Swaha said, stressing that Saudi Arabia is expanding global partnerships “for the benefit of humanity.”
“We believe the more prosperous the Kingdom, the Middle East, is, the more prosperous the world is. And it is not a surprise that we fuel 50 percent of the digital economy in the kingdom or the region,” he told the audience.
He added that the Kingdom fueled three times the tech force of its neighbors and, as a result, 50 percent of venture capital funding.
Al-Swaha said Saudi Arabia was focused both on artificial intelligence acceleration and adoption. At home, he said, the Kingdom was doubling the use of agentic AI in the public and private sector to increase worker productivity tenfold. He also cited the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant, which was conducted in Saudi Arabia.
Rapid technological adoption
“If we double down on talent, technology, and build trust with partners, we can achieve success,” he said. “And we are following the same blueprint for the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom aimed to be a “testbed” for innovators and investors. Rapid technological adoption and investment have boosted Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy, with non-oil activities accounting for 56 percent of GDP and surpassing $1.2 trillion in 2025, ahead of the Vision 2030 target.
In terms of adoption, Al-Swaha said the Kingdom had introduced the Arabic-language AI model, Allam, to be adopted across Adobe product series. It has also partnered with Qualcomm to bring the first hybrid AI laptop and endpoints to the world.
“These are true testimonies that the kingdom is not going local or regional; we are going global,” he said.
