Ghada Ismail

Before a single road is built, a tower rises, or a railway is laid, another kind of construction is already underway high above the ground. Helicopters equipped with advanced laser scanners survey vast desert landscapes, drones capture thousands of high-resolution images over construction sites, and satellites continuously monitor coastlines, mountains, and cities. Together, these technologies create a digital blueprint of Saudi Arabia long before physical development begins. 

This is the world of geospatial intelligence, an industry that combines aerial surveying, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), artificial intelligence, and digital modeling to transform location data into actionable insights. While largely invisible to the public, these technologies have become essential to Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, supporting giga-projects, energy infrastructure, environmental conservation, and smart city development. Behind every landmark project lies an equally ambitious effort to map, analyze, and monitor the Kingdom with unprecedented precision. 

More Than Mapping

Modern geospatial services extend far beyond aerial photography. Aircraft and drones equipped with LiDAR sensors, thermal cameras, and multispectral imaging systems capture millions of measurements every second, producing highly accurate three-dimensional models and engineering-grade imagery. Once processed through GIS platforms and AI-powered software, this data becomes a digital representation of the physical world that supports planning, construction, maintenance, and operational decision-making. 

Demand for these capabilities has surged under Vision 2030. Mega-projects such as NEOM, The Red Sea, Diriyah, Qiddiya, renewable energy developments, logistics hubs, mining operations, and transportation corridors all require continuous surveying throughout their lifecycle. Rather than relying solely on traditional ground surveys, project teams now use helicopters, drones, and satellites to collect accurate spatial data in hours instead of weeks while improving safety by reducing the need for personnel to inspect hazardous locations. 

Helicopters and Drones: Complementary Technologies

Although drones dominate today's headlines, helicopters remain indispensable for large-scale aerial surveying. While drones excel at collecting highly detailed data over localized areas, helicopters are better suited for inspecting long infrastructure corridors, oil and gas pipelines, transmission lines, coastlines, and other remote areas where endurance and payload capacity are essential.

Among the companies supporting this capability is The Helicopter Company (THC), whose expanding operations across Saudi Arabia increasingly support infrastructure inspection, environmental monitoring, emergency response, and specialized aerial surveying. 

Drones, meanwhile, have transformed data collection by making aerial surveys faster, safer, and more affordable. Construction firms monitor project progress, mining operators calculate excavation volumes, utility companies inspect transmission lines, and environmental agencies assess vegetation and coastal erosion. Increasingly, the industry's focus has shifted from the aircraft themselves to the intelligence they generate, giving rise to Saudi companies that combine aerial operations with artificial intelligence, engineering expertise, and advanced analytics. 

Turning Data into Intelligence

Collecting aerial data is only the first step. The real value lies in transforming millions of images, laser measurements, and GPS coordinates into insights that engineers and decision-makers can use.

This is where Saudi Arabia's geospatial ecosystem is rapidly evolving. Companies increasingly provide end-to-end solutions that integrate aerial surveys, AI, GIS, cloud computing, and digital engineering rather than simply delivering imagery.

One example is Terra Drone Arabia, which provides aerial surveying, LiDAR mapping, photogrammetry, industrial inspections, and digital twin services across sectors including construction, oil and gas, utilities, and mining. By combining these capabilities with AI-powered analytics, the company helps organizations move beyond visual inspections toward predictive asset management and data-driven decision-making. The broader trend is clear: geospatial companies are no longer selling images; they are delivering intelligence. 

Beyond Construction

While mega-projects often dominate discussions about geospatial technology, its applications extend across virtually every major industry. Energy companies use drones and helicopters to inspect pipelines, offshore facilities, and power transmission networks. Mining operators monitor excavation progress and environmental compliance, while agricultural businesses rely on multispectral imaging to assess crop health, irrigation efficiency, and soil conditions. Environmental agencies track desertification, biodiversity, and flood risks, telecommunications providers optimize network coverage, and insurers increasingly use aerial imagery to assess property damage and streamline claims.

These diverse applications demonstrate that geospatial intelligence is no longer a niche engineering discipline. It has become a foundational digital capability supporting industries ranging from energy and logistics to agriculture, telecommunications, public safety, and environmental management. 

Building Talent for a Growing Industry

Technology alone cannot build a geospatial economy. Every successful mission depends on pilots, engineers, GIS specialists, software developers, AI experts, and data analysts capable of transforming raw data into meaningful insights. Recognizing this need, Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in workforce development.

DroneX Academy prepares professionals for commercial drone operations through practical training and certification programs, while the Drones Academy at the College of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Jeddah integrates education, research, AI, robotics, and industry collaboration to prepare students for next-generation geospatial technologies. Meanwhile, the Drones Club at Tuwaiq Academy introduces younger innovators to drone technologies through workshops, technical challenges, and hands-on learning. Together, these initiatives reflect a shift from training drone pilots to building a complete talent pipeline for the Kingdom's expanding geospatial sector. 

The Next Frontier

Despite its rapid growth, the industry faces important challenges. Expanding commercial drone operations will require continued progress in regulation, airspace integration, and Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations. At the same time, protecting sensitive geospatial data from cyber threats and integrating information from drones, satellites, IoT sensors, and engineering systems into unified platforms will remain key priorities. Meeting growing demand for AI specialists, GIS analysts, remote sensing experts, and digital twin developers will be equally critical. 

Looking ahead, artificial intelligence is expected to accelerate the industry's evolution by automating image analysis, identifying infrastructure defects, monitoring construction progress, and detecting environmental changes.

A Digital Foundation for Vision 2030

Saudi Arabia's transformation is often measured through its skyline, mega-projects, and landmark developments. Yet much of that transformation begins long before construction starts. It starts with helicopters surveying remote terrain, drones capturing millions of data points, satellites monitoring environmental change, and engineers transforming spatial information into digital models that guide billion-riyal investments.

Companies including The Helicopter Company and Terra Drone Arabia contribute to this evolving ecosystem, while institutions such as DroneX Academy, the University of Jeddah's Drones Academy, and the Drones Club at Tuwaiq Academy are developing the talent needed to sustain it. Together, they illustrate that geospatial intelligence has evolved from a technical support function into a strategic capability underpinning infrastructure planning, industrial productivity, environmental stewardship, and digital transformation.

As Vision 2030 advances, Saudi Arabia is not only building new cities and industries; it is creating a detailed digital representation of the Kingdom itself. In many ways, the nation's next great transformation is taking shape first in the virtual world, where every road, pipeline, coastline, and building is mapped, analyzed, and understood before it is built on the ground. 

Kholoud Hussein 

The Kingdom is no longer simply digitizing public services or investing in technology. It is attempting something far more ambitious: rebuilding its economic architecture around data, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, and digital infrastructure. The question is no longer whether Saudi Arabia can diversify beyond oil, but whether it can redefine what a modern digital economy looks like in the Middle East.

The Economy Saudi Arabia Is Really Building

For more than eight decades, Saudi Arabia's economic story has been inseparable from oil. Hydrocarbons transformed the Kingdom from a largely desert economy into one of the world's most influential energy producers, financing decades of infrastructure, industrialization, education, and social development. Oil was not merely a source of government revenue; it became the foundation upon which the modern Saudi state was built.

Today, however, Saudi Arabia is pursuing a transformation that is arguably even more profound than the discovery of oil itself. While much of the global conversation continues to focus on the Kingdom's diversification efforts under Vision 2030, a quieter yet far more consequential shift is unfolding beneath the surface. Saudi Arabia is no longer asking how to reduce its dependence on oil. Instead, it is asking what the country's next economic operating system should look like.

Economic diversification has traditionally meant expanding into new industries, whether tourism, manufacturing, logistics, mining, or entertainment. A digital economy, however, represents something fundamentally different. Rather than creating another sector alongside existing ones, it reshapes every sector simultaneously. It changes how governments deliver services, how companies produce goods, how entrepreneurs build businesses, how consumers spend money, and ultimately how economic value itself is created.

In this new model, data becomes a productive asset. Algorithms become economic infrastructure. Cloud computing replaces physical limitations. Artificial intelligence evolves from a technological tool into a driver of productivity, competitiveness, and innovation. The economy becomes less dependent on physical resources and increasingly powered by digital capabilities that transcend geography.

Saudi Arabia's ambitions therefore extend well beyond becoming a technology hub or attracting multinational technology companies. The Kingdom is attempting to redesign the foundations of its economy so that digital technologies become embedded across government, finance, healthcare, education, manufacturing, logistics, energy, and commerce. Success will not be measured by the number of technology companies operating in Riyadh or the volume of venture capital invested in startups alone. It will be determined by whether digital technologies become the default mechanism through which economic activity is created, exchanged, and scaled.

This is precisely why Saudi Arabia's digital transformation deserves to be viewed through an economic rather than a technological lens. Around the world, many countries have successfully digitized government services or expanded internet connectivity. Far fewer have attempted to rebuild their entire economic model around digital capabilities.

The Kingdom believes it can become one of them.

Yet ambition alone has never transformed economies. History offers countless examples of countries that invested billions in technology parks, innovation districts, and digital infrastructure without fundamentally changing how their economies functioned. Building a digital economy requires far more than laying fiber-optic cables or launching government applications. It requires rethinking regulation, attracting capital, cultivating entrepreneurial talent, building trust in digital services, encouraging private-sector innovation, and ensuring that digital technologies generate productivity rather than merely convenience.

Saudi Arabia's challenge, therefore, is not simply technological. It is structural.

The Kingdom must prove that digital transformation can become an engine of sustainable economic growth capable of generating new industries, creating high-value employment, increasing productivity, and positioning Saudi Arabia as a global exporter of digital innovation rather than a consumer of imported technologies.

It is an ambition that reaches beyond Vision 2030 itself. It is about defining what the Saudi economy looks like long after oil ceases to dominate global growth.

More Than Diversification: Redefining Economic Value

When policymakers first began speaking about economic diversification in Saudi Arabia, the objective appeared relatively straightforward: reduce dependence on oil revenues by expanding sectors such as tourism, mining, manufacturing, entertainment, logistics, and financial services. These industries would create new jobs, attract foreign investment, and generate alternative sources of national income.

A decade later, that conversation has evolved significantly. Today, diversification is increasingly viewed not as an end goal but as one component of a much larger economic transformation. The emergence of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, advanced analytics, and digital platforms has fundamentally altered how wealth is created in the global economy. Competitive advantage is no longer determined solely by natural resources or industrial capacity. It is increasingly shaped by a country's ability to generate, process, and commercialize data.

This shift helps explain why Saudi Arabia's investments in digital infrastructure have accelerated alongside investments in traditional economic sectors. The Kingdom is not merely building new industries; it is building the digital foundations upon which those industries will operate. The distinction is subtle but profound.

A tourism strategy can increase visitor numbers. A digital economy transforms the entire tourism value chain, from digital visas and intelligent transportation systems to AI-powered hospitality services, cashless payments, predictive demand forecasting, and personalized travel experiences. Manufacturing no longer depends exclusively on factories but on connected supply chains, industrial automation, predictive maintenance, and real-time analytics. Financial services become embedded into digital platforms rather than confined to bank branches.

In this sense, digital transformation ceases to be an ICT initiative and becomes national economic policy.

This is one of the defining characteristics of Saudi Arabia's approach. Rather than treating technology as a standalone industry, policymakers increasingly present digital capabilities as horizontal enablers capable of increasing productivity across virtually every sector identified in Vision 2030.

The result is a new understanding of economic value. Instead of asking how many barrels of oil the Kingdom exports, policymakers are beginning to ask how many digital transactions are processed daily, how much private capital flows into technology ventures, how many startups commercialize locally developed innovations, and how effectively data can be transformed into economic output.

Such questions would have seemed peripheral to Saudi Arabia's economic strategy only a decade ago. Today, they sit much closer to its center.

And perhaps that is the clearest indication that Saudi Arabia is pursuing something more ambitious than diversification. It is attempting to redefine the very mechanisms through which economic growth is generated.

Building the Digital Backbone: Why Infrastructure Became Saudi Arabia's New Strategic Resource

Every industrial revolution has depended on infrastructure. The railways powered the first age of industrialization. Electricity transformed manufacturing in the twentieth century. Highways connected national markets and accelerated trade. Today, the infrastructure that determines economic competitiveness is far less visible. It consists of fiber-optic cables buried beneath cities, hyperscale data centers, cloud computing platforms, artificial intelligence clusters, and billions of digital transactions flowing silently through secure networks every day.

Saudi Arabia recognized early that becoming a digital economy would require far more than launching government applications or encouraging online commerce. Digital services can only flourish when supported by an infrastructure capable of processing vast amounts of data securely, reliably, and at scale. In other words, before building digital businesses, the Kingdom first had to build a digital backbone.

That realization has fundamentally shaped Saudi Arabia's digital strategy over the past decade.

Unlike many countries where digital infrastructure evolved gradually through private-sector investments, Saudi Arabia adopted a coordinated national approach. Government entities, regulators, sovereign wealth funds, and global technology companies have worked simultaneously to establish the physical and regulatory foundations of the digital economy. The objective has never been limited to improving internet speeds or expanding telecommunications coverage. Instead, the Kingdom has sought to create an environment where digital businesses can emerge, scale, and compete internationally.

This explains why investments in telecommunications infrastructure have been accompanied by equally significant reforms in digital governance, cybersecurity, cloud regulation, spectrum allocation, and data management. Digital infrastructure, in the Saudi context, is viewed not as a utility but as a productive economic asset capable of attracting investment, reducing transaction costs, and increasing national competitiveness.

The impact of this strategy becomes particularly evident when examining how businesses now operate. A startup launching today in Riyadh enters a fundamentally different environment than one established only ten years ago. Cloud services can be deployed almost instantly. Payment systems are increasingly integrated. Government licensing has become significantly faster. Digital identity solutions simplify customer onboarding, while advanced logistics and communications networks enable companies to reach customers across the Kingdom with unprecedented efficiency.

For entrepreneurs, this infrastructure removes many of the barriers that once slowed business creation. For investors, it reduces operational risk. For multinational corporations, it provides the confidence to establish regional operations capable of serving broader Middle Eastern markets.

In many respects, infrastructure has become Saudi Arabia's most important competitive advantage.

This advantage extends well beyond connectivity. The Kingdom has increasingly positioned itself as a regional destination for cloud computing, recognizing that data storage and processing capacity will become as strategically important in the twenty-first century as ports, highways, and industrial zones were in previous decades.

The arrival of global technology companies reflects this shift. International cloud providers have announced significant investments in Saudi Arabia, encouraged by regulatory reforms, expanding demand, and the government's commitment to developing local digital capabilities. Rather than exporting data abroad, Saudi Arabia is gradually building the capacity to process, store, and analyze information domestically, strengthening both economic resilience and digital sovereignty.

The importance of cloud infrastructure cannot be overstated. Artificial intelligence applications require enormous computing power. Digital banking depends on secure cloud environments. Smart factories generate millions of data points daily. Autonomous transport systems rely on real-time information processing. None of these innovations can scale without robust digital infrastructure operating continuously behind the scenes.

As digital technologies become embedded across every industry, infrastructure itself begins to influence productivity. Faster networks reduce business costs. Secure cloud environments accelerate innovation. Reliable digital identity systems simplify financial transactions. Integrated government platforms reduce administrative burdens. Each improvement may appear incremental, yet together they reshape how economic activity occurs.

This transformation has also altered the relationship between the public and private sectors.

Historically, governments built roads, airports, and power stations while businesses invested in commercial opportunities. In the digital economy, these roles increasingly overlap. Governments establish digital platforms and regulatory frameworks, while private companies build products and services on top of them. The result is a more collaborative model in which public infrastructure creates opportunities for private innovation rather than replacing it.

Saudi Arabia's digital government initiatives illustrate this evolution particularly well. Instead of merely digitizing paperwork, government agencies have developed interoperable digital platforms that businesses can integrate directly into their operations. Entrepreneurs no longer spend weeks navigating administrative procedures that once required multiple physical visits to government offices. Licensing, taxation, customs, and regulatory compliance are increasingly handled through integrated digital systems, allowing companies to devote more resources to growth and innovation.

This seemingly administrative transformation carries profound economic implications. Time, after all, is one of the most valuable resources for any entrepreneur. Reducing bureaucratic friction does more than improve convenience; it lowers the cost of doing business. For startups operating with limited capital and tight timelines, these efficiencies can determine whether a company succeeds or fails.

Infrastructure has therefore become an invisible form of venture capital. Instead of financing individual companies, the government finances the environment in which thousands of companies can emerge.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Saudi Arabia's digital infrastructure strategy is that it has been designed with future technologies in mind rather than current demand alone. Investments in artificial intelligence, edge computing, high-performance cloud services, cybersecurity, and advanced connectivity anticipate an economy that does not yet fully exist but is expected to emerge over the coming decades.

This long-term perspective distinguishes infrastructure planning from many earlier digital initiatives around the world, which often focused on solving immediate administrative problems. Saudi Arabia is instead attempting to create digital capacity before demand reaches its peak, positioning itself to capture future industries rather than reacting to them after they mature elsewhere.

Yet infrastructure alone cannot produce innovation.

Fiber-optic networks do not create startups. Data centers do not invent new business models. Artificial intelligence platforms do not automatically generate globally competitive companies. They provide the conditions under which innovation becomes possible, but they cannot substitute for entrepreneurship itself.

That is where the private sector enters the story.

As Saudi Arabia's digital foundations have matured, a new generation of startups has begun transforming public investment into commercial opportunity. They are not merely benefiting from the Kingdom's digital transformation; increasingly, they are becoming the mechanism through which that transformation reaches consumers, businesses, and global markets.

The digital backbone may have been built by national strategy, but its true economic value will ultimately be measured by the companies that grow upon it.

The Startup Layer: Where National Strategy Meets Entrepreneurial Innovation

Governments can build infrastructure. They can modernize regulations, invest in artificial intelligence, establish cloud regions, and digitize public services. Yet history has consistently shown that governments rarely create the innovations that transform everyday economic life. Those breakthroughs almost always emerge from entrepreneurs who recognize market inefficiencies long before policymakers do.

Saudi Arabia appears to understand this distinction. While much international attention has focused on the Kingdom's multi-billion-dollar investments in digital infrastructure and flagship projects such as NEOM, an equally significant transformation has been unfolding within its entrepreneurial ecosystem. Over the past decade, startups have evolved from peripheral players into one of the principal instruments through which the Kingdom's digital ambitions are being translated into commercial reality.

This shift represents a fundamental change in how economic development is being pursued.

For decades, economic growth in Saudi Arabia was largely driven by public expenditure. Government investments created industries, generated employment, and stimulated private activity. Today's digital economy, however, operates according to different rules. Innovation moves too quickly to be directed exclusively through public institutions. Consumer preferences evolve faster than regulation. Technologies become obsolete within years rather than decades. Under these conditions, entrepreneurship becomes not merely desirable but indispensable.

The Kingdom's role, therefore, has gradually evolved from being the primary driver of economic activity to becoming an enabler of entrepreneurial innovation.

This philosophy is increasingly visible across the Saudi startup landscape.

Rather than attempting to build digital services directly, public institutions have concentrated on creating the conditions in which private companies can solve market problems more efficiently. The result is an ecosystem where government provides the infrastructure, regulatory certainty, and access to capital, while entrepreneurs compete to create scalable solutions for consumers and businesses alike.

It is a relationship that has become one of the defining characteristics of Saudi Arabia's digital transformation.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in electronic commerce.

Only a decade ago, launching an online retail business in Saudi Arabia presented significant logistical and operational challenges. Payment systems remained fragmented. Small businesses struggled to establish digital storefronts. Inventory management, shipping integration, customer analytics, and marketing tools were often inaccessible or prohibitively expensive for entrepreneurs.

Today, much of that complexity has disappeared.

Companies such as Salla and Zid have fundamentally changed how commerce operates across the Kingdom. Rather than simply providing website-building software, these platforms have developed integrated ecosystems that allow thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises to establish digital businesses with unprecedented speed. Payments, logistics, inventory management, marketing automation, customer engagement, and analytics are increasingly delivered through unified digital platforms, lowering the barriers to entrepreneurship for an entirely new generation of business owners.

In doing so, these companies have accomplished something larger than technological innovation. They have democratized access to entrepreneurship itself.

A similar transformation has occurred within financial technology.

Traditional banking systems often struggle to serve rapidly evolving digital businesses whose operational models differ significantly from conventional enterprises. Fintech startups have emerged precisely because they can respond more quickly to changing customer expectations.

Companies such as Tamara, which pioneered the rapid adoption of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services across the Gulf, have redefined consumer finance for younger generations accustomed to seamless digital experiences. Rather than viewing finance as a standalone banking product, these companies have embedded financial services directly into digital commerce, shortening purchasing journeys and expanding access to credit.

The significance of this innovation extends beyond consumer convenience.

Embedded finance fundamentally changes how money circulates within the economy. Transactions become faster, merchants experience improved cash flow, consumers gain greater purchasing flexibility, and digital commerce accelerates. What appears to be a simple payment option ultimately increases economic activity across multiple sectors simultaneously.

Equally transformative has been the emergence of Saudi startups specializing in artificial intelligence.

While much global discussion surrounding AI continues to revolve around large language models and consumer-facing applications, several Saudi companies have chosen a different path, focusing on enterprise solutions tailored to regional markets.

Companies such as Mozn have demonstrated how artificial intelligence can address highly specialized challenges in financial crime detection, compliance, fraud prevention, and risk management. Their success illustrates an important evolution within Saudi entrepreneurship. Rather than replicating Silicon Valley consumer applications, an increasing number of Saudi startups are developing technologies designed to solve complex business and institutional problems.

This transition from consumer applications to enterprise technology represents a critical milestone in any innovation ecosystem.

It indicates that entrepreneurship is beginning to create intellectual property rather than simply adapting existing business models.

A similar trend can be observed in companies like Lucidya, whose artificial intelligence platform enables organizations to analyze Arabic-language digital conversations across social media and online channels. By developing technologies specifically optimized for Arabic, Lucidya addresses a challenge largely overlooked by many global software providers.

Its competitive advantage lies not merely in technology, but in contextual understanding.

This highlights another defining characteristic of Saudi Arabia's startup ecosystem. Increasingly, local companies are identifying opportunities that international competitors cannot easily replicate because they require deep familiarity with regional languages, consumer behavior, regulatory frameworks, and business culture.

In many ways, localization itself has become a strategic advantage.

The construction and industrial sectors offer another compelling example.

Saudi Arabia's unprecedented investment in megaprojects has created demand for digital solutions capable of improving safety, productivity, and operational efficiency. Companies such as WakeCap have responded by integrating wearable technologies and real-time analytics into construction sites, enabling project managers to monitor workforce movements, improve safety standards, and optimize project execution through data-driven insights.

These innovations may appear highly specialized, yet their cumulative economic impact is substantial.

Construction productivity influences infrastructure delivery. Infrastructure affects logistics. Logistics shapes manufacturing competitiveness. The ripple effects extend throughout the broader economy.

The same pattern is emerging across healthcare, education, logistics, cybersecurity, climate technology, and industrial automation.

They identify inefficiencies invisible to large institutions and transform them into scalable business opportunities.

That capacity for experimentation may ultimately become one of Saudi Arabia's greatest competitive advantages.

Unlike traditional economic development strategies, which often depend upon large industrial investments with long implementation cycles, startups compress innovation into months rather than years. New products are tested rapidly, customer feedback is incorporated continuously, and successful models scale across markets with remarkable speed.

This entrepreneurial agility has become increasingly important as digital technologies evolve faster than regulatory frameworks can adapt.

Recognizing this reality, Saudi Arabia has invested heavily not only in startups themselves but in the ecosystem surrounding them.

Events such as LEAP have evolved into global platforms connecting founders with venture capitalists, multinational technology companies, policymakers, and institutional investors. Initiatives led by Monsha'at, the National Technology Development Program (NTDP), and innovation hubs such as The Garage have sought to reduce many of the structural obstacles traditionally associated with entrepreneurship, including access to funding, mentorship, technical expertise, and international networks.

The Public Investment Fund has further reinforced this momentum by channeling significant capital into technology-focused initiatives and attracting global venture investors to the Kingdom.

The cumulative effect is becoming increasingly visible. Saudi Arabia is no longer merely producing successful startups. It is beginning to produce an innovation economy. A startup ecosystem measures the number of companies created.

An innovation economy measures how effectively those companies reshape productivity, generate intellectual property, attract global capital, and create entirely new industries.

Saudi Arabia appears increasingly focused on the latter.

Yet becoming the Middle East's first truly digital economy will require more than a vibrant startup ecosystem. It will require demonstrating that digital technologies can transform not only new companies, but also traditional industries that continue to account for the overwhelming majority of national output.

The next phase of Saudi Arabia's transformation, therefore, may prove to be its most difficult: extending digital innovation beyond startups and embedding it into the wider economy, from manufacturing and logistics to healthcare, tourism, mining, and energy itself.

Ghada Ismail

A decade ago, artificial intelligence was largely viewed as a futuristic technology discussed in research laboratories and Silicon Valley boardrooms. Today, it writes code, detects diseases, powers government services, personalizes shopping experiences, and helps businesses make decisions in seconds. AI has rapidly evolved from a niche innovation into a transformative force that is reshaping industries and economies across the globe.

Every year on 16 July, Artificial Intelligence Appreciation Day celebrates these technological advances and the people driving them forward. Yet for Saudi Arabia, the occasion represents something even more significant. It is an opportunity to reflect on how artificial intelligence has become a central pillar of the Kingdom's economic transformation, driving innovation, attracting global investment, and creating entirely new industries under Vision 2030.

Rather than simply adopting AI technologies developed elsewhere, Saudi Arabia has pursued a far more ambitious goal: building an ecosystem where artificial intelligence can be developed, governed and commercialized at scale. In just a few years, the Kingdom has laid the foundations for an AI-powered economy through national strategies, digital infrastructure, talent development and partnerships with some of the world's leading technology companies.

From Vision 2030 to an AI Economy

Saudi Arabia's AI ambitions are rooted in Vision 2030, the national blueprint launched to diversify the economy beyond oil and position innovation at the heart of future growth. While digital transformation has long been a priority, artificial intelligence has evolved into one of the Kingdom's most strategic investments, underpinning everything from government services and healthcare to finance, manufacturing, and education.

A defining milestone came in 2019 with the establishment of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), which was tasked with leading the Kingdom's AI and data agenda. The following year, the launch of the National Strategy for Data and AI (NSDAI) provided a comprehensive roadmap for developing AI capabilities, attracting investment, fostering innovation and creating a globally competitive digital economy.

Since then, Saudi Arabia has consistently demonstrated that AI is not merely a technology initiative but a national development strategy. The Kingdom has introduced policies to encourage innovation, developed governance frameworks for the responsible use of AI and invested heavily in the digital infrastructure needed to support increasingly sophisticated technologies.

This long-term commitment has translated into measurable international recognition. Saudi Arabia ranked first globally in the Government Strategy pillar of Tortoise Media's Global AI Index, an assessment that measures the strength of national AI policies, governance structures, public investment, and implementation. The ranking reflects more than ambitious targets. It recognizes the Kingdom's establishment of SDAIA, the rollout of the National Strategy for Data and AI, dedicated AI governance frameworks, sustained investment in digital infrastructure, and coordinated efforts to embed AI across government and industry. Together, these initiatives have positioned Saudi Arabia among the world's most proactive governments in developing a national AI ecosystem.

Saudi Arabia's AI by the Numbers

The scale of Saudi Arabia's ambitions is reflected in both its investments and expected economic impact. According to PwC, artificial intelligence is projected to contribute US$135.2 billion to the Kingdom's economy by 2030, equivalent to approximately 12.4% of GDP, making it the highest projected AI-driven economic contribution among Middle Eastern economies and one of the highest globally. Since establishing the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) in 2019, the Kingdom has launched the National Strategy for Data and AI (NSDAI), introduced the Arabic large language model ALLAM, established HUMAIN to accelerate AI infrastructure and innovation, and expanded AI applications across healthcare, finance, education, logistics, manufacturing, and government services. Alongside these initiatives, Saudi Arabia has introduced AI ethics principles and governance frameworks, demonstrating that its AI agenda extends well beyond technology adoption to encompass policy, talent development, infrastructure, and long-term economic transformation.

Saudi Startups Are Driving the Next Wave

Government initiatives may have laid the foundation, but Saudi Arabia's startup ecosystem is increasingly becoming one of the strongest drivers of AI innovation.

A growing number of startups are demonstrating that the Kingdom is moving beyond AI adoption to AI creation. Rather than simply integrating off-the-shelf technologies, these companies are developing solutions tailored to regional markets and real business challenges.

Mozn has emerged as one of Saudi Arabia's leading AI companies, using machine learning to combat financial crime, strengthen compliance and support smarter risk management for financial institutions. Lucidya has built one of the region's most advanced AI-powered customer intelligence platforms, helping businesses analyze Arabic-language conversations across social media and digital channels to better understand consumer behavior.

Meanwhile, Intelmatix is applying artificial intelligence to enterprise decision-making, enabling organizations to optimize operations and improve strategic planning through predictive analytics. Companies such as Salla and Zid are also embedding AI into e-commerce platforms, while startups across healthcare, logistics, cybersecurity and retail continue introducing AI-powered products designed specifically for regional markets.

The Next Frontier Is Trust

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly sophisticated, experts believe the next stage of AI adoption will depend less on algorithms themselves and more on the quality, security, and resilience of the data that powers them.

According to Tim Pfaelzer, Senior Vice President and General Manager for EMEA at Veeam, organizations are entering what he describes as the "agentic era," where AI systems are evolving beyond simple assistants into autonomous digital workers capable of making decisions and performing tasks with minimal human intervention.

"AI is revolutionizing how organizations unlock value from their data, providing instantaneous insights and uncovering opportunities that were previously out of reach," Pfaelzer says.

He believes this shift is fundamentally changing how businesses operate.

"These agents are becoming autonomous, 24/7 digital workforces, scaling productivity and accelerating decision-making."

The scale of investment reflects this growing confidence. According to Pfaelzer, hyperscale technology companies have collectively invested more than US$650 billion to build the infrastructure supporting the next generation of AI innovation. At the enterprise level, adoption is accelerating rapidly, with 88% of organizations already piloting AI agents across their technology environments.

Yet despite this enthusiasm, readiness remains a significant challenge.

According to Veeam's research, only around 7% of organizations currently possess the foundational capabilities required to be genuinely AI-ready.

For Pfaelzer, the problem is not artificial intelligence itself—it is the quality of the data feeding these systems.

"The lack of visibility into data can cause AI models and agents to act on incomplete, outdated or inaccurate information, leading to unreliable outcomes at machine speed."

To address this challenge, Pfaelzer argues that organizations must establish what he describes as a "trust layer" built on complete data visibility, governance and resilience.

"By ensuring AI agents are powered by secure, accurate and readily recoverable data, businesses can unlock AI's full potential without allowing it to become their Achilles' heel."

For Saudi Arabia, this approach aligns closely with its broader AI strategy, which emphasizes responsible innovation alongside rapid technological advancement. As the Kingdom continues expanding AI adoption, building trustworthy and resilient data ecosystems may prove just as important as developing increasingly powerful AI models.

Celebrating Progress While Preparing for the Future

Artificial Intelligence Appreciation Day is often viewed as a celebration of technological breakthroughs. Saudi Arabia's story offers a broader and more compelling perspective.

The Kingdom's AI journey demonstrates that meaningful progress requires far more than sophisticated algorithms or headline-grabbing investments. It depends on long-term national planning, modern digital infrastructure, responsible governance, strategic partnerships and, above all, people capable of transforming innovation into real economic and social value.

Over the past several years, Saudi Arabia has methodically laid these foundations. Through Vision 2030, it has established national AI strategies, built world-class infrastructure, nurtured a vibrant startup ecosystem, attracted global technology leaders and accelerated AI adoption across sectors that directly affect the lives of millions of people.

The next phase of this journey will likely be defined not by the size of AI models or the speed of technological breakthroughs, but by how effectively artificial intelligence improves productivity, enhances public services, empowers businesses, and creates sustainable economic growth.

As the world marks Artificial Intelligence Appreciation Day, Saudi Arabia is celebrating more than the rise of a transformative technology. It is celebrating the emergence of an AI ecosystem built with a long-term vision; one that is positioning the Kingdom not simply to participate in the global AI revolution, but to help shape its future.

Ghada Ismail

People are increasingly choosing where to receive medical care based on more than just the treatment itself. Faster access to specialists, advanced technology, personalized support, and a smooth patient journey are all shaping decisions about seeking care abroad.

As demand for cross-border healthcare grows, countries around the world are investing heavily to position themselves as trusted medical tourism destinations.

Saudi Arabia is among the countries working to seize this opportunity. Supported by Vision 2030 and major investments in healthcare infrastructure, the Kingdom is steadily building the foundations of a medical tourism ecosystem. With internationally accredited hospitals and specialized treatment centers, digital health services, and dedicated programs for international patients, Saudi Arabia is aiming to offer not only high-quality care but also a seamless experience tailored to visitors from abroad.

While the Kingdom is still developing its presence in a competitive global market, its expanding healthcare capabilities, growing private-sector participation, and business-friendly reforms are creating new opportunities for hospitals, healthcare companies, and investors.

A Growing Opportunity in Medical Tourism

Medical tourism has become one of the fastest-growing segments of the global healthcare industry. Patients are increasingly willing to travel abroad in search of better healthcare experiences, whether that means faster access to specialists, advanced technologies, personalized care, or internationally recognized hospitals.

Saudi Arabia sees this trend as an opportunity to diversify its economy while strengthening its healthcare sector. According to Research and Markets, the Kingdom’s medical tourism market was valued at approximately US$200 million in 2024 and is projected to reach US$680 million by 2030, reflecting a 22.5% compound annual growth rate as investments in healthcare infrastructure, private hospitals, and specialized services continue to expand.

Unlike some established destinations that compete primarily on affordability, Saudi Arabia is developing a different value proposition. The Kingdom is leveraging modern healthcare facilities, internationally accredited providers, highly qualified medical professionals, and integrated patient services to attract visitors from the GCC, the wider Middle East, Africa, and other international markets.

The sector also aligns closely with Vision 2030’s broader objectives of increasing private-sector participation, attracting foreign investment, and positioning healthcare as an important contributor to economic diversification.

Private Healthcare Providers Are Leading the Way

Much of Saudi Arabia’s progress in medical tourism is being driven by the private healthcare sector.

Over the past decade, private hospital groups in Saudi Arabia have expanded their facilities, introduced advanced medical technologies, and pursued international accreditations that help strengthen confidence among overseas patients. Many providers have also broadened their focus beyond clinical care, recognizing that international patients expect a comprehensive experience that begins before they arrive at the hospital. Among the leading players is Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Group, which describes itself as one of the Middle East’s largest private healthcare providers. The group has developed a network of hospitals equipped with advanced medical technologies and internationally accredited facilities, supporting its ability to serve patients from across Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf region.

Saudi German Health has strengthened its international patient offering through dedicated services that support appointment coordination, patient assistance, and other services designed to facilitate treatment for overseas visitors in the Kingdom.

Similarly, Dallah Health offers international patient services that support patients throughout their treatment journey, including coordination of care and related patient services. The company’s internationally accredited hospitals also reinforce its reputation for quality among both local and international patients.

Another example is the International Medical Center (IMC) in Jeddah, which has developed services for international patients through personalized care coordination and partnerships with insurance providers.

Collectively, these organizations demonstrate that Saudi healthcare providers are increasingly competing not only through clinical excellence but also through convenience, hospitality, and patient-centered services.

Creating a Seamless Journey for International Patients

Medical tourism is no longer defined solely by hospitals. Around the world, successful destinations rely on a broader ecosystem of businesses that simplify the patient journey from the moment treatment is considered until long after recovery.

Saudi Arabia is gradually developing this ecosystem.

One example is SAGE, a healthcare consultancy and medical travel facilitator that works with hospitals, governments, and healthcare organizations to improve international patient services, headquartered in Saudi Arabia. Rather than providing treatment directly, the company helps connect patients with healthcare providers while coordinating referrals, treatment planning, travel logistics, accommodation, and recovery support.

This concierge-style model is becoming increasingly important as international patients seek simplicity and reassurance throughout the treatment process. By reducing administrative complexity, facilitators such as SAGE help create a smoother healthcare experience while allowing hospitals to focus on clinical care.

The sector is also benefiting from broader coordination efforts. The Medical Tourism Cooperative Society is working to strengthen collaboration between healthcare providers, tourism companies, investors, and other stakeholders with the aim of developing a more integrated medical tourism industry. Such initiatives reflect a growing recognition that attracting international patients requires cooperation across multiple sectors rather than individual hospital efforts alone.

Digital Tools Are Making Care Easier to Access

Technology is becoming another important factor in Saudi Arabia’s medical tourism ambitions.

For international patients, convenience often begins long before boarding a flight. Many Saudi healthcare providers now offer virtual consultations, online appointment scheduling, digital access to medical records, and remote follow-up services that allow patients to communicate with specialists before and after their visit.

These digital services help patients better understand their treatment options, prepare for their journey, and remain connected with healthcare providers once they return home. They also reduce uncertainty, one of the biggest concerns for people considering medical treatment abroad.

Saudi Arabia’s growing digital health ecosystem is therefore complementing investments in physical healthcare infrastructure, creating a more seamless patient experience that aligns with global expectations.

Challenges Still Need to Be Addressed

Despite the progress, Saudi Arabia still faces several challenges before it can establish itself as a leading medical tourism destination.

International recognition remains one of the biggest hurdles. Countries such as Thailand, Türkiye, India, and Singapore have spent decades building strong global reputations for medical tourism, supported by extensive marketing campaigns and well-established international referral networks.

Pricing transparency is another important consideration. International patients increasingly compare destinations based on the overall value they receive, making clear pricing structures and predictable costs essential for building trust.

Expanding partnerships with international insurers, strengthening referral networks, and increasing awareness among overseas patients will also be crucial if Saudi Arabia hopes to compete more effectively in the global marketplace.

What the Future Holds for Saudi Medical Tourism

Medical tourism represents far more than an opportunity for hospitals to attract additional patients. It has the potential to generate demand across a wide range of industries, including hospitality, aviation, transportation, insurance, digital health, and professional services. Every international patient contributes to an economic value chain that extends well beyond the healthcare sector.

For Saudi Arabia, this aligns closely with Vision 2030’s ambition to diversify the economy by creating new industries driven by innovation and private investment. As hospitals continue expanding their international patient programs and supporting businesses develop more integrated services, medical tourism could emerge as an increasingly important contributor to the Kingdom’s visitor economy.

Saudi Arabia may still be building its reputation as a medical tourism destination, but its strategy is becoming increasingly clear. By combining modern healthcare infrastructure, internationally accredited providers, digital patient services, and a growing network of supporting businesses, the Kingdom is laying the foundations for a competitive regional industry. The next phase will depend not only on attracting more international patients but also on delivering an experience that encourages them to choose Saudi Arabia with confidence.

Kholoud Hussein 

Few countries have transformed their digital landscape as rapidly and comprehensively as Saudi Arabia. Over the past decade, digital transformation has evolved from being a government modernization initiative into one of the Kingdom's most influential economic and social development strategies. Under Vision 2030, technology has become more than an enabler of public services; it has emerged as a catalyst for economic diversification, private-sector growth, entrepreneurship, and social inclusion.

Today, renewing official documents, opening a bank account, establishing a company, booking a medical appointment, signing contracts, paying utility bills, or accessing government services can all be completed through a smartphone within minutes. Platforms such as Absher, Nafath, Sehhaty, Qiwa, and Tawakkalna have fundamentally changed how citizens interact with the state, while digital payments, e-commerce, and cloud-based business solutions have transformed the private sector's operating model.

These achievements have positioned Saudi Arabia among the world's leading digital economies. The Kingdom ranked second globally in the World Bank's GovTech Maturity Index, while the Digital Government Authority (DGA) reports that more than 97% of government services are now offered digitally. According to the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST), internet penetration has surpassed 99%, making Saudi Arabia one of the world's most connected societies. Digital payments now account for nearly 80% of all retail transactions, exceeding one of Vision 2030's original targets years ahead of schedule, while the ICT market has grown into the largest in the Middle East, with a value exceeding SAR 180 billion.

These figures tell the story of remarkable progress. Yet they also raise an equally important question.

If digital infrastructure has reached almost every household, if government services have largely become digital by default, and if businesses increasingly operate through digital platforms, does this mean every citizen and every company is benefiting equally from the Kingdom's digital transformation? 

The success of Saudi Arabia's digital journey has revealed a new challenge—one that is less visible than internet coverage maps or smartphone penetration rates, yet potentially more consequential for the country's long-term economic ambitions. It is a challenge that policymakers, businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs around the world are increasingly confronting: the digital divide.

Unlike a decade ago, however, the digital divide no longer refers simply to whether people can access the internet. In highly connected economies such as Saudi Arabia, it has become a far more sophisticated issue. It now concerns who possesses the skills to navigate an increasingly digital economy, who can leverage emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence to improve productivity, who can establish digitally enabled businesses, and who risks being left behind as economic activity becomes progressively technology-driven.

For Saudi Arabia, addressing this new generation of digital inequality is not merely a technological objective. It is an economic necessity. As the Kingdom accelerates its transition toward a knowledge-based economy, ensuring that every individual and every business can participate meaningfully in the digital era will become just as important as expanding fiber-optic networks or launching new government applications.

The first phase of Vision 2030 focused on building digital infrastructure, while the next phase will focus on ensuring that everyone can build their future upon it.

What Is Meant by the Digital Divide?

The concept of the digital divide has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past three decades. When policymakers first began discussing the issue during the rapid expansion of the internet in the 1990s, the concern was relatively straightforward: millions of people simply lacked access to computers and reliable internet connections. Digital inequality was therefore measured by physical infrastructure. Countries with limited broadband networks, low computer ownership, and weak telecommunications systems were considered digitally excluded.

Governments responded by investing heavily in connectivity. Expanding broadband coverage, reducing internet costs, and improving telecommunications infrastructure became central objectives of national development strategies across both developed and emerging economies.

Over time, however, it became increasingly clear that providing internet access alone was not enough.

Two individuals could own the same smartphone, access the same broadband network, and use the same government platforms, yet derive entirely different economic value from those technologies. One might use digital tools to establish a successful online business, access global markets, develop new skills, and improve productivity. The other might use the same technology primarily for communication or entertainment without experiencing any significant economic benefit.

This realization fundamentally changed how international organizations define the digital divide.

Today, institutions such as the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) describe digital inclusion as a multidimensional concept encompassing not only access to digital infrastructure but also digital literacy, affordability, accessibility, cybersecurity awareness, trust in online services, and the ability to participate productively in the digital economy.

In other words, connectivity has become only the starting point. Meaningful participation has become the real objective.

This evolution has given rise to what researchers increasingly describe as the "second" and even "third" generations of the digital divide.

The first generation focused on infrastructure—who had access to the internet and who did not.

The second focused on digital skills—who could effectively use technology to improve education, employment, and business performance.

Today, the third generation is emerging around artificial intelligence, data literacy, automation, cloud computing, and advanced digital capabilities. As intelligent technologies become integral to every sector of the economy, the divide increasingly separates those capable of creating value from technology from those who simply consume it.

This distinction is becoming one of the defining characteristics of modern economies.

Digital transformation is no longer measured by the number of smartphones in circulation or broadband subscriptions. Increasingly, it is measured by the number of digitally skilled workers, AI-enabled businesses, technology-driven entrepreneurs, innovative startups, and organizations capable of competing in a global digital marketplace.

For countries pursuing ambitious economic diversification strategies, including Saudi Arabia, this new definition carries profound implications.

Building infrastructure may require billions of dollars in investment, but building digital capabilities requires something far more challenging: long-term investment in education, talent development, entrepreneurship, research, and innovation.

Saudi Arabia's Journey Toward Closing the Digital Divide

Saudi Arabia's experience illustrates how rapidly a nation can transform its digital landscape when technology becomes a national strategic priority.

When Vision 2030 was launched in 2016, digital transformation was identified as one of the key enablers of economic diversification. Rather than treating technology as a standalone sector, policymakers viewed it as a foundation capable of improving government efficiency, attracting foreign investment, empowering entrepreneurs, creating new industries, and enhancing quality of life.

Over the past decade, this vision has translated into unprecedented investments across digital infrastructure.

The Kingdom expanded fiber-optic networks across urban and rural areas, accelerated nationwide 5G deployment, strengthened cloud computing capabilities, modernized telecommunications regulations, and encouraged greater private-sector participation in the ICT sector. Today, Saudi Arabia enjoys one of the highest smartphone penetration rates in the world and among the region's most advanced digital infrastructure ecosystems.

Yet infrastructure represented only one aspect of the transformation.

The government simultaneously embarked on an ambitious digital government agenda that fundamentally changed the relationship between citizens and public institutions.

Instead of requiring physical visits to multiple government offices, integrated digital platforms now allow individuals and businesses to complete hundreds of transactions remotely. According to the Digital Government Authority, Saudi Arabia has digitized more than 97% of its government services, while the Kingdom continues to improve user experience through unified digital identities, interoperable platforms, and AI-powered public services.

This transformation has produced tangible economic benefits.

Administrative costs have declined, business registration procedures have accelerated, compliance has become more efficient, and entrepreneurs can establish companies significantly faster than was possible only a decade ago. The reduction in bureaucracy has strengthened Saudi Arabia's attractiveness as an investment destination while supporting the growth of its startup ecosystem.

As Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Alswaha has repeatedly emphasized, the Kingdom's digital transformation is not simply about deploying technology but about empowering people and creating opportunities for innovation. Speaking at several international forums, Alswaha has argued that Saudi Arabia's greatest competitive advantage lies in its investment in human capabilities, noting that talent—not technology alone—will determine success in the era of artificial intelligence.

Similarly, Ahmed Alsuwaiyan, Governor of the Digital Government Authority, has consistently highlighted that digital government is no longer measured solely by the number of online services but by the quality of citizens' digital experiences. His remarks reflect an important shift in public policy thinking: successful digital transformation depends not only on making services available, but also on ensuring they are accessible, intuitive, inclusive, and trusted.

These achievements explain why Saudi Arabia is frequently cited as one of the world's leading examples of digital transformation. Yet they also underscore an important reality.

Building world-class digital infrastructure is only the first step.

Ensuring that every citizen, entrepreneur, employee, student, and business can benefit equally from that infrastructure is a far more complex challenge—one that cannot be solved through technology alone.

It requires investment in people. And it is precisely at this point that Saudi Arabia's digital transformation enters its most important phase.

Who Is Still Left Out? The New Face of Digital Inequality

It is tempting to assume that digital inequality disappears once internet access becomes nearly universal. Saudi Arabia's experience demonstrates otherwise.

The Kingdom has largely solved what development economists refer to as the "first-generation digital divide." Broadband networks extend across the country, fifth-generation (5G) services continue to expand, smartphone ownership ranks among the highest globally, and digital government platforms have become the primary channel through which citizens interact with public institutions. In purely technological terms, Saudi Arabia has built one of the most advanced digital ecosystems in the region.

Yet digital transformation has entered a far more complex stage.

Today, exclusion is less visible than it was a decade ago. It no longer manifests itself through the absence of internet connections or limited access to government services. Instead, it appears through unequal opportunities to participate in a rapidly evolving digital economy. Some individuals, businesses, and sectors have embraced digital technologies as engines of growth and innovation, while others continue to struggle to translate connectivity into tangible economic value.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than among Saudi Arabia's small and medium-sized enterprises.

SMEs occupy a central position within Vision 2030, with the Kingdom aiming to increase their contribution to gross domestic product to 35% by the end of the decade. Considerable progress has already been made, supported by financing initiatives, regulatory reforms, and a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. Nevertheless, digital maturity remains uneven across the sector.

Many young startups have been built entirely around cloud computing, artificial intelligence, digital payments, and data analytics. They operate with technology embedded into every stage of their business models, allowing them to scale rapidly and compete beyond local markets.

By contrast, many traditional SMEs continue to rely on fragmented digital systems or manual processes. Inventory management, customer relationships, accounting, procurement, and sales often remain disconnected, preventing businesses from fully exploiting the efficiencies offered by modern technology. Digital tools may exist within these companies, but they frequently operate in isolation rather than forming an integrated digital ecosystem capable of improving productivity and supporting strategic decision-making.

This disparity has become one of the defining characteristics of Saudi Arabia's emerging digital economy.

Increasingly, competitiveness depends not on whether businesses possess technology, but on how effectively they integrate it into their daily operations.

The same challenge extends to family-owned businesses, many of which have formed the backbone of the Saudi private sector for decades.

While large family conglomerates have invested heavily in digital transformation, thousands of smaller family enterprises continue to navigate the transition from traditional business practices toward digitally driven operating models. Succession planning has become intertwined with technological modernization, as younger generations often seek to introduce e-commerce, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, and data-driven decision-making into businesses historically built on personal relationships and conventional management practices.

For many of these companies, digital transformation is no longer simply an operational upgrade; it has become essential to long-term survival.

The labor market presents another dimension of the digital divide.

The rapid adoption of automation and artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping the skills demanded by employers. Administrative tasks that once required significant human intervention are increasingly automated, while demand continues to grow for professionals capable of managing digital platforms, analyzing data, developing AI solutions, strengthening cybersecurity, and operating within cloud-based environments.

According to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report, digital skills are expected to become among the fastest-growing competencies worldwide during the remainder of this decade. Saudi Arabia has recognized this challenge through extensive investments in digital skills programs, coding academies, artificial intelligence education, and workforce reskilling initiatives. Nevertheless, maintaining alignment between education outcomes and rapidly evolving labor market requirements remains one of the Kingdom's most significant long-term challenges.

As Alswaha has repeatedly emphasized, talent will ultimately determine the success of the digital economy. Infrastructure may provide the platform, but people remain the primary engine of innovation.

Another group facing unique challenges consists of elderly citizens.

Although Saudi Arabia has made remarkable progress in simplifying digital government services through user-friendly platforms such as Absher and Sehhaty, digital adoption among older generations remains uneven. Many continue to depend on family members to complete electronic transactions, navigate digital banking services, or manage online healthcare appointments.

This does not necessarily reflect a lack of willingness to embrace technology. Rather, it highlights the importance of designing digital services that accommodate varying levels of digital confidence and technological familiarity.

True digital inclusion requires more than making services available online; it requires ensuring that every citizen can use them independently and confidently.

People with disabilities represent another important dimension of digital inclusion.

Saudi Arabia has introduced significant accessibility standards across government platforms as part of its broader commitment to inclusive development. However, rapid technological innovation continually creates new accessibility requirements, particularly as artificial intelligence, immersive technologies, and increasingly sophisticated digital interfaces become integrated into everyday services.

Ensuring that technological progress remains inclusive will require ongoing collaboration between government institutions, technology companies, accessibility specialists, and entrepreneurs.

Geography also continues to influence digital participation, although in different ways than in the past.

The issue is no longer whether rural communities possess internet connectivity. Significant investments have dramatically expanded broadband coverage throughout the Kingdom. Instead, the challenge increasingly concerns access to advanced digital ecosystems.

Entrepreneurs in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dhahran benefit from proximity to accelerators, venture capital firms, technology conferences, research institutions, universities, and innovation hubs. These ecosystems facilitate collaboration, investment, mentorship, and knowledge exchange.

Entrepreneurs operating in smaller cities may possess equivalent connectivity yet fewer opportunities to participate in these innovation networks.

Closing this gap will require continued expansion of regional entrepreneurship ecosystems rather than infrastructure alone.

Digital inequality also manifests itself in financial capability.

While Saudi Arabia has become one of the Middle East's leading markets for digital payments and fintech innovation, not every entrepreneur possesses the financial knowledge required to leverage digital financing solutions effectively. Understanding crowdfunding, embedded finance, venture capital, revenue-based financing, digital lending, or investment readiness increasingly determines whether startups can secure the capital needed to grow.

Financial literacy has therefore become inseparable from digital literacy.

As financial services become increasingly technology-driven, entrepreneurs who fail to understand digital finance risk limiting their own growth opportunities.

Taken together, these examples illustrate a profound shift in the nature of digital inequality.

The remaining barriers are no longer primarily technological. They are educational, economic, institutional, and increasingly, they are connected to human capability.

Why Closing the Digital Divide Matters Economically

For many years, digital transformation was discussed primarily as a technological objective. Governments invested in telecommunications networks, electronic services, and broadband infrastructure because these projects represented visible signs of modernization. Today, however, economists increasingly regard digital inclusion through a different lens.

It has become an economic growth strategy.

Every digitally capable entrepreneur strengthens private-sector competitiveness. Every SME that successfully integrates artificial intelligence or cloud computing improves productivity. Every worker who acquires advanced digital skills contributes to labor market resilience. Collectively, these individual gains translate into broader economic performance.

This explains why institutions such as the World Bank, the OECD, and the International Monetary Fund increasingly describe digital inclusion as a driver of productivity rather than merely a social policy objective.

For Saudi Arabia, the implications are particularly significant.

Vision 2030 seeks to diversify the economy through innovation, entrepreneurship, advanced manufacturing, financial services, tourism, logistics, and technology. None of these sectors can achieve their full potential without a digitally capable workforce and digitally mature businesses.

Digital inclusion therefore sits at the intersection of nearly every major national economic objective because: 

• It influences startup formation.
• It affects SME growth.
• It strengthens labor productivity.
• It attracts foreign direct investment.
• It supports research and innovation.
• It determines how effectively Saudi Arabia competes within the global digital economy.

The Kingdom has already demonstrated that it can build world-class digital infrastructure.

The next measure of success will depend on how effectively every citizen and every business can transform that infrastructure into opportunity.

The Role of Saudi Startups: Bridging the Last Mile of Digital Transformation

If government institutions built Saudi Arabia's digital infrastructure, startups have built the bridges that connect this infrastructure to everyday life.

This distinction is important because digital transformation does not end with the launch of an electronic government service or the expansion of a fiber-optic network. Infrastructure creates possibilities, but it is businesses that transform those possibilities into practical solutions capable of changing how people work, shop, save, learn, receive healthcare, manage companies, and access financial services.

In many respects, Saudi startups have become the "last mile" of the Kingdom's digital transformation.

Rather than competing with government initiatives, they have complemented them by identifying highly specialized problems that public institutions could not address alone. While government established the regulatory frameworks and invested in digital infrastructure, startups focused on simplifying complex processes, reducing costs, improving accessibility, and encouraging both individuals and businesses to embrace digital technologies with confidence.

Perhaps nowhere has this been more evident than in financial technology.

For decades, access to financing represented one of the largest obstacles facing entrepreneurs and SMEs across the region. Traditional banking requirements often made obtaining credit difficult for younger businesses, while many consumers remained hesitant about using digital financial services.

Saudi fintech startups have played a central role in changing this reality.

Companies such as Tamara have transformed consumer financing by popularizing Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) solutions, enabling millions of consumers to shop online while giving merchants new opportunities to increase sales and improve customer acquisition. At the same time, platforms such as Lendo introduced debt crowdfunding models that opened alternative financing channels for SMEs, addressing a longstanding funding gap that conventional financial institutions alone could not fill.

Similarly, Hakbah modernized the traditional concept of community savings by digitizing "Jameya" models, encouraging financial inclusion while preserving familiar cultural practices. Instead of replacing traditional behaviors, the company enhanced them through technology, making saving more transparent, accessible, and efficient.

Collectively, these startups did more than introduce new financial products. They strengthened public confidence in digital financial services, encouraged cashless transactions, and expanded participation in the Kingdom's growing digital economy.

Retail technology presents another compelling example.

The explosive growth of e-commerce in Saudi Arabia would have been difficult to sustain without platforms designed specifically for local merchants.

Companies such as Salla and Zid significantly lowered the barriers to launching online businesses. Entrepreneurs no longer needed to build expensive websites, hire software developers, or invest heavily in digital infrastructure before reaching customers. Instead, these platforms offered integrated ecosystems combining online storefronts, payment gateways, inventory management, logistics, customer relationship management, and digital marketing tools within a single solution.

This democratization of technology proved particularly significant for small businesses.

By reducing the cost and complexity of digital commerce, these startups enabled thousands of entrepreneurs to participate in Saudi Arabia's rapidly expanding online economy, regardless of their technical background.

The restaurant industry experienced a similar transformation.

Saudi-based Foodics evolved from a point-of-sale provider into a comprehensive cloud platform supporting restaurants with inventory management, payment processing, analytics, customer engagement, and operational intelligence. In doing so, the company helped thousands of restaurants transition from traditional management methods toward fully digital operations, improving efficiency and supporting long-term scalability.

Education technology has followed a comparable trajectory.

As digital learning became increasingly important, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic, companies such as Classera demonstrated how Saudi-developed educational technologies could serve not only domestic institutions but international markets as well. By integrating digital classrooms, AI-powered learning tools, and cloud-based education management systems, these platforms helped schools embrace hybrid and digital learning environments while expanding access to high-quality educational resources.

AI startups are now emerging as the next frontier.

Companies including Mozn have developed sophisticated AI solutions for fraud detection, anti-money laundering, and financial risk management, illustrating the evolution of Saudi startups from digital service providers into creators of advanced technologies capable of competing internationally.

Similarly, Lucidya has enabled organizations across the region to analyze Arabic-language customer sentiment using artificial intelligence, filling a gap that global technology providers often overlooked. By tailoring AI solutions to Arabic-speaking markets, the company demonstrated how local innovation can solve challenges that international products frequently fail to address.

Industrial technology is experiencing similar momentum.

Construction technology startup WakeCap uses wearable Internet of Things (IoT) devices and data analytics to improve workforce safety and operational efficiency across large construction projects. The company's success reflects another important aspect of Saudi Arabia's startup ecosystem: digital transformation is no longer confined to software or consumer applications. Increasingly, it is reshaping traditional industries such as construction, manufacturing, logistics, and infrastructure.

The Next Gaps Waiting to Be Filled

Despite the remarkable growth of Saudi Arabia's startup ecosystem, significant opportunities remain.

Indeed, the Kingdom's continued digital transformation is likely to create entirely new markets over the coming decade.

Artificial intelligence represents perhaps the largest opportunity.

While large corporations increasingly invest in AI capabilities, many SMEs continue to struggle with implementation. Future startups are therefore expected to focus less on developing foundational AI models and more on making artificial intelligence practical, affordable, and accessible for small businesses operating across retail, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, legal services, education, and tourism.

Another promising area lies in Arabic-language AI.

Although global AI models continue improving multilingual capabilities, demand is growing for solutions specifically designed around Arabic language processing, regional dialects, cultural contexts, and local regulatory environments. Saudi entrepreneurs are well positioned to become global leaders in this niche.

Accessibility technologies represent another underserved market.

As Saudi Arabia advances its commitment to inclusive development, demand will continue growing for digital solutions that better serve elderly citizens and people with disabilities. Technologies supporting voice navigation, accessible digital interfaces, AI-powered assistance, and adaptive user experiences represent significant commercial opportunities while simultaneously strengthening digital inclusion.

Cybersecurity is expected to become equally important.

As businesses become increasingly digital and government services rely more heavily on cloud computing and artificial intelligence, protecting digital infrastructure will require continuous innovation. Saudi Arabia has already identified cybersecurity as a strategic priority, creating fertile ground for startups specializing in digital identity protection, threat intelligence, secure cloud infrastructure, and AI-powered cyber defense.

Education technology also remains far from saturated.

The challenge is no longer simply digitizing classrooms. Instead, the next generation of EdTech startups is likely to focus on lifelong learning, AI-assisted education, personalized skills development, vocational reskilling, and continuous professional education designed for rapidly changing labor markets.

Collectively, these emerging sectors demonstrate that the digital divide should not be viewed solely as a challenge.

It also represents one of Saudi Arabia's largest investment opportunities.

AI and the Next Digital Divide

If internet connectivity defined the first generation of digital transformation, artificial intelligence is likely to define the next.

The rapid adoption of generative AI has fundamentally changed the nature of digital competitiveness. Access to AI tools is becoming increasingly widespread, but access alone no longer guarantees productivity.

The real advantage lies in knowing how to integrate AI into daily work.

Businesses capable of automating workflows, analyzing data, improving customer service, forecasting demand, enhancing cybersecurity, and supporting strategic decision-making through artificial intelligence will increasingly outperform competitors relying on traditional operating models.

This represents a new form of digital inequality. It is not an infrastructure divide. It is an intelligence divide.

Saudi Arabia has moved aggressively to position itself at the forefront of this transformation. Through the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), the National Strategy for Data and AI, and the launch of HUMAIN, the Kingdom has committed billions of dollars toward AI infrastructure, cloud computing, research partnerships, semiconductor investments, and talent development.

Speaking at LEAP and other international forums, Minister Abdullah Alswaha has consistently argued that the global AI race will not be won solely through computing power but through investment in people. Talent, education, and innovation, he maintains, will determine which nations ultimately lead the next wave of technological transformation.

From Digital Access to Digital Opportunity

As Vision 2030 enters its final years, Saudi Arabia's digital transformation is approaching a defining moment.

The Kingdom has already demonstrated that ambitious public policy, substantial investment, and close collaboration between government and the private sector can fundamentally reshape an economy within a remarkably short period. International rankings, expanding digital infrastructure, growing startup activity, and increasing foreign investment all point toward a digital ecosystem that continues to mature at an impressive pace.

Yet the next chapter will demand something even more ambitious.

It will require ensuring that digital transformation benefits every entrepreneur, every SME, every student, every worker, and every community—not simply by providing access to technology, but by enabling them to create value from it.

This is where startups, investors, universities, corporations, and policymakers will increasingly converge. Their shared challenge will be to transform digital inclusion from a policy objective into an economic reality, one that supports innovation, strengthens productivity, expands entrepreneurship, and enhances global competitiveness.

Ultimately, the digital divide is not simply about technology. It is about opportunity.

It is about ensuring that no promising entrepreneur is prevented from growing because of limited digital capabilities, that no small business is excluded from the digital economy because it cannot adopt emerging technologies, and that no citizen is left behind as artificial intelligence reshapes the future of work.

Saudi Arabia has already built one of the world's most advanced digital foundations.

The next measure of its success will not be the number of platforms it launches, the speed of its internet, or the sophistication of its digital infrastructure.

It will be measured by something far more important: how many people can confidently participate, compete, innovate, and prosper within the digital economy it has created.

Noha Gad

Saudi Arabia has proven that technology and telecommunications are cornerstones of the modern Hajj experience. The record success of Hajj 2026 was powered by AI-driven crowd management, multilingual robots, the Nusuk platform, and a robust 5G network with over 5,230 towers delivering 99.9% availability. Yet the backbone of any mass gathering lies in the physical well-being and movement of millions. Healthcare and transport represent the most critical and most demanding pillars of the Hajj economy in Saudi Arabia.

The physical well-being of over 1.7 million pilgrims, many elderly or with pre-existing conditions, in a climate where temperatures can exceed 45 degrees Celsius, presents a medical challenge of epic proportions. Heatstroke, exhaustion, infectious diseases, and cardiac emergencies are constant threats that demand an instantaneous, highly coordinated medical response. Simultaneously, moving this massive population across the sacred sites requires transport networks of extraordinary capacity and precision. 

According to official figures by the Ministry of Health (MoH), the Saudi healthcare ecosystem delivered around 2.5 million medical services during Hajj 2026, while over one million calls were handled through the ministry's "937" health hotline. More than 52,000 health workers and 7,700 paramedics were deployed during the pilgrimage, supported by over 20,000 hospital beds, including 3,800 dedicated to the holy sites. Additionally, field epidemiology teams, rapid-response units, and advanced laboratory networks remained on standby throughout the pilgrimage, while multilingual public awareness campaigns focused on heat stress and disease prevention.

This success was also supported by the Kingdom’s efforts to increase hospital capacity significantly and provide new healthcare services. This included remote consultations through the Virtual Health Hospital, systems enabling the exchange of medical information with pilgrims’ home countries, and the deployment of a Mobile Stroke Unit to serve visitors in and around the Holy Mosque. According to the Vision 2030 Annual Report 2025, around 10,000 individuals benefited from the Virtual Health Hospital. This milestone reaffirms that virtual care has become a core component of the healthcare system in the Kingdom.

The integration of groundbreaking technologies to advance healthcare services

The Kingdom achieved a fundamental transformation in the healthcare systems during Hajj 2026 by integrating AI-powered surveillance, virtual clinics, and smart wearables. These innovations enabled authorities to manage crowds safely, provide real-time multilingual medical guidance, and protect millions of pilgrims from extreme heat and health risks.

• Intelligent healthcare systems

The National Platform for Health and Insurance Exchange Services (NPHIES platform) gave medical practitioners instant access to patient data, while telemedicine services provided remote consultations. The platform functioned as a centralized health information exchange (HIE) system that connected doctors, clinics, and emergency responders in the sacred sites to streamline several key healthcare processes. Additionally, the Raqeem enhanced medical records management and documentation efficiency, alongside the Raqeeb platform for monitoring and managing controlled medications, and the Ayenati system, which digitally connects laboratories and test results to accelerate access to health information.

To further enhance healthcare services during Hajj 2026, the Kingdom launched the Symptom Checker, an AI-powered tool that analyzes symptoms and medical history to provide preliminary assessments and instant health guidance. This solution contributed to reducing waiting times, improving medical triage efficiency, and providing around-the-clock medical support.

• Medical robotics

Medical robotics played a pivotal role in facilitating and streamlining healthcare services for pilgrims. These robots helped medical workers provide effective and accurate treatments and enhance patient outcomes. Hospital logistics, medicine distribution, and patient care services were also supported by robotic technologies. This innovation decreased response time and aided healthcare teams in coping with a surge in demand as a result of millions of visitors.

• Drones

Saudi authorities introduced drone deliveries for medicine and medical supplies during Hajj 2026, operating across the holy sites of Makkah. This innovation contributed to speeding up the delivery of medical logistics and improving response times during the Day of Arafat.

• Electronic E-Bracelets and Smart Cards

Pilgrims were equipped with digital e-bracelets or cards that store vital personal and medical information, allowing first responders and medical tents to access medical history instantly.

Moving millions: Transport network behind Hajj 2026

Transport played a central role in managing the movement of millions of pilgrims across cities and holy sites within a limited timeframe. In recent years, a more connected network has made it easier to move between arrival points, Makkah, Madinah, and the sacred sites. This network brings together air, rail, and ground transport. For instance, pilgrims who arrive through Jeddah or Madinah can travel via the Haramain High-Speed Railway between major cities and rely on other transportation, such as the Mashaer Train and Makkah buses, to move within and around the holy sites. 

The Haramain High-Speed Railway is one of the fastest trains in the world, which links Makkah and Madinah through a 453-kilometer route passing through Jeddah, King Abdulaziz International Airport, and King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), with an operating speed of up to 300 kilometers per hour. Its network operates through a fleet of 35 trains, each with a capacity of up to 417 seats. In Hajj 2026, the Haramain High-Speed Railway recorded outstanding performance, achieving an on-time performance rate exceeding 98%. It transported more than 1.16 million passengers through 5,569 trips linking Makkah and Madinah. 

With a fleet of 17 trains and an operational capacity of 72,000 passengers per hour, the Mashaer Train extends for 18 kilometers and connects the holy sites of Mina, Muzdalifah, and Arafat, helping reduce travel time, ease traffic congestion, and improve crowd-management efficiency during peak periods. Official figures showed that the Mashaer Train transported more than 961,000 pilgrims in Hajj 2026. Around 290,000 pilgrims were transported from Arafat to Muzdalifah during one operational phase, while another 357,000 pilgrims were later moved from Muzdalifah back to Mina.

Beyond passenger capacity, the Mashaer Train delivered significant environmental benefits as its operation helped replace approximately 50,000 bus trips during the season, easing traffic congestion and enhancing environmental sustainability through reliance on electric energy with zero carbon emissions.

The Kingdom’s plans to facilitate transport during Hajj 2026 included the deployment of 33,000 buses and 5,000 taxis to boost safe, efficient transport and smooth pilgrim movement across the holy sites. More than 2,500 buses were operating round the clock to transport pilgrims, while 24 parking areas with space for 20,000 buses had been prepared to reduce congestion and improve movement efficiency. Additionally, the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites deployed 24,000 buses through a central automated control system, including 2,500 for arrivals and 400 buses operating within Makkah on 14 routes.

The numbers from Hajj 2026 paint a remarkable picture of logistical and humanitarian achievement. It underscored Saudi Arabia’s successful efforts to transform the Hajj from a spiritual journey burdened by logistical chaos into a masterclass in human-centered coordination. The integration of AI-powered diagnostic tools, telemedicine platforms, robotic logistics, and drone deliveries redefined what is possible in mass gathering healthcare.

The true success of Hajj 2026 is a testament to the Kingdom’s commitment to better serving pilgrims and Umrah performers under the ambitious Vision 2030. From the digital ecosystems, including AI crowd management, 5G connectivity, and the Nusuk platform, to the healthcare and transport pillars, the Kingdom has demonstrated that technology and human compassion are not opposing forces but complementary tools.

Noha Gad

Each year, millions of Muslims from around the world converge on Saudi Arabia for the Hajj, supported by a meticulously orchestrated logistics, housing, and transportation operation. This annual event has evolved far beyond its spiritual roots into one of the world’s most remarkable seasonal economic phenomena. For the Kingdom, Hajj is more than a religious obligation; it is a national priority, tightly tied to Vision 2030, the country’s long-term roadmap for economic transformation. Yet managing this massive influx within a confined geography and time window presents relentless challenges: infrastructure strain, crowd management, pricing regulation, and environmental sustainability. As Saudi Arabia opens its doors to increasing numbers of visitors, the Hajj economy stands as both a model of large-scale event logistics and a high-stakes test of the Kingdom’s economic transformation.

In Hajj 2026, the Kingdom welcomed over 1.7 million pilgrims from 165 nationalities, including 1.5 million external pilgrims and 160,646 internal pilgrims, marking the second-largest number following the 1.86 million pilgrims in 2019. According to recent statistics released by the General Statistics Authority (GASTAT), male pilgrims reached 893,396, representing 52.3% of the total number, while female pilgrims reached 813,905, accounting for 47.7% of the total number. These figures underscore Saudi Arabia’s continued efforts to serve pilgrims and visitors of the Holy Mosque in Makkah, the sacred sites, and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, with a focus on care, organization, and hospitality. 

From vision to app: Digitizing the pilgrim journey

The Pilgrim Experience Program (PEP) is one of the programs designed to achieve Saudi Vision 2030. Launched in 2019 to enable the largest number of Muslims possible to perform Hajj and Umrah in the best manner, the program aims to facilitate hosting a larger number of Hajj and Umrah performers and streamlining access to the Haramain (the Two Holy Mosques in Makkah and Al-Madinah); providing high-quality services to pilgrims for a comprehensive and smooth experience; and enriching the religious and cultural experience of pilgrims by allowing them to visit Islamic historical and cultural sites.

The program is a model of agility, strategic excellence, and infrastructure, acting quickly to ensure a successful pilgrimage by safeguarding against threats and maintaining highly skilled personnel on hand. 

To further facilitate the pilgrims’ experience, the Kingdom launched the Nusuk platform and the Makkah Route initiative, reflecting a broader change: services are being adopted at scale, supporting a growing number of pilgrims with greater consistency and ease

With over 54 million users and more than 4 billion user interactions, Nusuk offers over 130 services and serves as a unified gateway for Muslims worldwide to plan their journeys in advance, access services, and manage their experience end-to-end. According to the Vision 20230 Annual Report 2025, the Makkah Route initiative enabled over 1.2 million pilgrims in 2025 to complete key procedures before departure, reducing waiting times and simplifying entry into the Kingdom, compared to 1,600 pilgrims in 2017.

Harnessing technology to enhance the Hajj experience

The success of the Hajj 2026 season underscored Saudi Arabia’s heavy investment in utilizing technology, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and smart services to improve crowd management and enhance operational efficiency. Through Saudi Vision 2030, the Kingdom installed high-end digitalization, medical technologies, and even AI-driven crowd control technologies to make the pilgrimage safer and smoother. The Saudi AI and Data Authority (SDAIA) led these efforts by operating several integrated AI-powered platforms and digital services throughout the pilgrimage journey.

AI-powered crowd management

One of the main areas of focus in the Hajj 2026 season is crowd management around the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the holy sites of Mina, Arafat, and Muzdalifah. According to SDAIA, platforms such as Baseer and Sawaher, developed in partnership with the Ministry of Interior, use computer vision, thermal imaging, and AI-driven analytics to monitor crowd density and movement patterns in real time and regulate pedestrian and vehicle flows in high-density areas around holy sites. These systems analyze live video feeds and surveillance data to identify congestion points, predict crowd surges, and support faster decision-making by authorities. Along with crowd management, Saudi authorities leveraged AI for enhanced transportation coordination, better resource allocation, and more effective emergency response.

Multilingual robots

The Kingdom deployed multi-service AI-powered robots designed to provide religious guidance and real-time translation in several languages as part of a wider digital ecosystem aimed at enriching visitors’ spiritual and intellectual experience. The robot offers interactive religious and educational content through an easy-to-use interface, including information on locations and services inside the two holy mosques, answers to religious inquiries, and instant translation services to help visitors from different nationalities and cultures communicate more easily.

Smart support services

In addition to surveillance systems, Saudi Arabia offered several smart support services to help pilgrims during their trip. For instance, drones were deployed to quickly inspect and assess the situation with crowds, providing authorities with useful real-time data regarding areas that would have been hard to capture otherwise. Additionally, digital advisory systems, multilingual communication support, and mobile applications assisted pilgrims with their routes, access to services, and valuable updates.

Saudi authorities also provided a range of digital solutions to help pilgrims find transportation, accommodation, healthcare, and religious support data, using mobile apps to send real-time alerts and assistance in various languages.

Connectivity that serves faith: how telecoms power the Hajj

The telecommunications sector was instrumental in the success of Hajj 2026, with the Kingdom’s advanced digital infrastructure playing a pivotal role. The core of this success was a massive physical infrastructure deployment that included over 5,230 communication towers across Makkah, Madinah, and the holy sites, complemented by more than 31,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cables to ensure comprehensive 4G and 5G coverage.

Operators like stc Group employed AI-powered systems for real-time crowd analysis and predictive traffic steering, with AI systems managing more than 99.9% of automated analytics and network decisions during peak hours, while service quality-related tickets fell 13%.

The group also has over 450 network expansion operations to include more than 3,000 new coverage points and 1,100 outdoor sites. These expansions increased the total data traffic by 42% during the Day of Arafah, with 5G accounting for more than 51% of total usage and 5G adoption growing 16% year-on-year. Average download speeds increased 13% while latency was reduced by 50%. The network achieved a call completion success rate of 99.83%, with VoLTE success up 11% and overall operational availability reaching 99.9% throughout the day. 

Additionally, stc Group provided integrated digital services at the Makkah Route’s lounges across 17 entry points in 10 countries to facilitate Hajj pilgrims’ procedures.

Zain KSA also developed an integrated ecosystem to enhance connectivity quality and digital services for pilgrims. It achieved a 99.9% network availability in Makkah and the sacred sites, and witnessed a 99% rise in call quality compared to the previous year and an 18% rise in high-quality data traffic.

The operator launched the Smart Hajj Platform, an AI-powered platform for end-to-end network management across the Hajj zone, to enhance performance efficiency and improve connectivity during the Hajj season. The platform enabled real-time detection and analysis of challenges and autonomous fixes requiring zero human intervention, allowing network challenges to be addressed faster than traditional manual monitoring methods.

These figures reaffirm that Saudi Arabia is no longer simply hosting pilgrims; it is engineering an end-to-end digital pilgrimage ecosystem where technology anticipates needs, bridges languages, and safeguards lives. The Hajj 2026 season demonstrated that the Kingdom has successfully transformed religious observance into a seamlessly orchestrated, data-driven operation without diminishing its spiritual essence.

As Vision 2030 approaches its final stretch, the Hajj economy offers a replicable blueprint for other mega-events worldwide. However, the true measure of success remains deeply human: shorter waiting times, clearer guidance, safer crowds, and the quiet dignity of worshipers who can focus entirely on their devotion. The next article will focus on two equally vital pillars of the Hajj economy: healthcare resilience in mass gatherings and the transportation logistics that move millions across sacred sites with precision and safety.

Kholoud Hussein 

Before long, fitness was viewed primarily as a lifestyle choice across much of the Middle East. Today, it has become a fast-growing economic sector attracting investment, driving entrepreneurship, and reshaping consumer spending habits. Across the GCC, rising health awareness, supportive government policies, and the expansion of modern fitness facilities have transformed wellness from a niche market into a mainstream industry. In Saudi Arabia particularly, Vision 2030 has accelerated this shift, helping create one of the region's fastest-growing fitness markets while encouraging greater participation across all demographics, especially women.

As the sector matures, attention is increasingly turning toward the technology infrastructure that powers gyms, personal trainers, and fitness operators. Beyond opening new fitness centers, the industry is entering a phase where operational efficiency, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and scalable digital platforms are becoming key drivers of growth and profitability. This evolution is creating significant opportunities for companies capable of bridging the gap between fitness services and technology.

Among the companies leading this transformation is Enhance, a Middle East-born fitness platform that has evolved from a regional service provider into a global technology player. Operating across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United States, the company now supports more than 15,000 personal trainers and facilitates over half a million training sessions every month. Through its Enterprise SaaS and AI-powered platform, Enhance Tech, the company is helping gym operators improve trainer performance, increase profitability, and better manage one of the industry's most valuable yet historically underutilized revenue streams: personal training.

As Enhance expands its footprint beyond the GCC and deepens its presence in the United States, the company is positioning itself at the intersection of fitness, artificial intelligence, and enterprise software. Its journey reflects broader trends reshaping the global wellness economy, where technology is increasingly becoming the foundation for scalable growth and long-term value creation.

In this exclusive interview with Sharikat Mubasher, Tarek Mounir, Founder and CEO of Enhance, discusses the company's evolution from a Dubai-based startup into a global fitness technology platform, the growing demand for personal training across Saudi Arabia and the GCC, the role of AI in transforming gym operations, the company's expansion strategy in the US and beyond, and how Enhance aims to become the global operating standard for personal training in the years ahead.

Enhance has scaled rapidly across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, while also expanding into the United States. How would you describe the company's current operating model, and what has been the key driver behind this cross-market growth?

Enhance is the operating system for personal training (PT). We help large gym chains turn PT from an afterthought into a predictable, profitable revenue stream — which in the high-volume, low-price (HVLP) segment is something almost nobody has cracked.

 We started in Dubai in 2018 as a service business. Eight years later, we cover 700+ contracted gym locations globally — UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and now the US — supporting 15,000 trainers and over 500,000 booked sessions a month. Revenue has compounded at 65% CAGR since 2019.

 The more important shift is the shape of the business. We went from a regional service layer into a SaaS platform that any multi-site gym operator can deploy. That super-sized our addressable market; from Gulf gym chains up into a $1.8 billion global PT management software category; with the US and UK alone worth $800 million. The GCC gave us the operational history and the proven unit economics. The US is where we're deploying them at scale.

With more than 15,000 personal trainers on the platform and over half a million monthly sessions booked, what does this level of activity reveal about demand trends in the fitness economy across the GCC?

The numbers reflect a structural shift in how GCC consumers approach health. A PT client in Dubai, in 2018, typically came in asking for weight loss before a wedding or a summer holiday. The same client today asks about strength, recovery, energy, and long-term healthspan. That vocabulary shift happened in under a decade.

 Saudi Arabia is the most significant data point. Vision 2030 opened the fitness category, and the pace of adoption — particularly among women — has been dramatic. We're seeing more first-time formal fitness participants in KSA right now than in any other market we operate in. Consumer demand there is outpacing the supply of qualified trainers, which tells you the ceiling is still far above where the market is today.

 Session volumes reflect PT’s transition from a premium add-on to a mainstream service. Over 500,000 booked sessions a month is not a niche conversation — it's a category.

Your Enterprise SaaS and AI-powered product, Enhance Tech, is gaining traction in the US market. What gap in the global gym industry are you addressing, and why do you believe this solution has not been built at scale before?

PT is a $42 billion global market, and most gym operators still lose money on it. The industry runs on whiteboards, spreadsheets and gut feel. Trainer churn sits around 70% a year. Fewer than 15% of free trial sessions convert into paying clients. Operators have almost no visibility into what is actually happening on the gym floor.

No one has solved this at scale because it requires two things that are genuinely hard to combine: deep operational experience running PT inside gyms, and the engineering capability to abstract that into software. Most software companies don't understand the gym floor. Most gym operators don't build software. We have spent eight years doing both, simultaneously.

The AI layer works because the dataset works first. We process over 500,000 PT sessions a month across 700+ gyms. Every session is a data point on what makes trainers successful, why members stay or leave, and where revenue leaks out. A new entrant would need almost a decade of operational history to rebuild that. That's not something you shortcut with capital.

The performance metrics you've shared — 20% more sessions per trainer, a 17% increase in operating margins, and over 40% improvement in trainer retention — are significant. From an investor's perspective, how do these metrics translate into long-term value creation for gym operators?

Each metric hits a different line on the P&L, so they compound in a meaningful way for operators and investors.

 The 20% increase in sessions per trainer is a revenue multiplier — the same headcount produces materially more output. The 17-percentage-point improvement in operating margin at mature sites makes PT much more of a profit engine for gyms. The retention number is the one investors tend to underweight the impact of: when trainer churn drops from the 70% industry norm to under 30%, operators are spared having to absorb constant rehiring and retraining costs, and clients stop churning with their trainer.

Put together, the model creates a gym that earns more from PT, spends less running it, and retains the people who deliver it. At mature sites we see PT revenue around $85,000 per club per month. That's the long-term value case — and it's why operators stay on the platform once they're on it.

Can you walk us through Enhance's funding journey to date? What type of investors have backed the company, and how are you positioning the business for future funding rounds or strategic partnerships?

We bootstrapped the early years deliberately. Taking outside capital before the unit economics were proven would have meant scaling the wrong thing faster. Once the model worked, we raised.

We've taken around $21 million to date. Our cap table includes Global Ventures — MENA's leading venture firm — alongside other institutional backers who understand the regional market and the global ambition. 

We are in conversations with investors who recognize now as particularly ideal timing, as we accelerate our US rollout, deepen the product, and move from a proven regional operator into the default PT infrastructure for large gym chains globally. 

The thesis is straightforward — PT is a $42 billion market with no system of record or operating standard. We're building it. The strategic partnerships we're pursuing in the US reflect the same logic: enterprise gym groups looking for an operator they can trust to run PT end-to-end, not just provide software.

Saudi Arabia is undergoing rapid transformation in its fitness and wellness sector under Vision 2030. How central is the Kingdom to your growth strategy, and what specific expansion plans do you have in this market?

Saudi Arabia is our highest-growth market and one of the most important in the world for this category. Vision 2030 did not just open a new segment — it catalysed a generational shift in how Saudi consumers relate to health and fitness. Current participation rates, particularly among women, would have been unimaginable a decade ago.

For Enhance, the KSA opportunity is both a consumer-side and enterprise-side story. For consumers, demand for qualified personal training is expanding faster than supply — the market constraint is the talent gap, not regulation or the willingness to pay. That creates a strong case for a platform that helps gym operators find, train, and retain good trainers at scale.

On the enterprise side, the large gym groups expanding aggressively across the Kingdom need infrastructure to run PT profitably — and the franchise model driving much of that expansion is exactly where our platform performs best. We're working with operators who are building for a ten-year horizon, and so are we.

Beyond the GCC and the US, which markets are you prioritising next, and what factors determine your market-entry strategy — regulation, consumer behaviour, or enterprise demand?

Enterprise demand drives the sequence, and then we assess the other factors. We follow large gym chains — if a group we already work with is expanding into a new market, that's a faster path to traction than building from scratch against an unfamiliar operator landscape.

As for what's next: the UK is a natural priority. It's the largest gym market in Europe, has strong HVLP penetration, and there is a significant shared-language advantage in how we build and sell the product. Beyond that, Southeast Asia and markets like Australia are interesting over a 24–36 month horizon — high gym penetration, growing PT adoption, and early-stage software infrastructure in the gym sector.

Regulation matters less than it might initially appear. Personal training is not a heavily regulated category in most markets. Consumer behaviour matters more — specifically, whether PT has reached the inflection point from premium to mainstream in a given market. Our GCC experience tells us that once that shift starts, it moves quickly.

As you continue to scale both your consumer platform and enterprise SaaS offering, how do you see Enhance evolving over the next three to five years — particularly in terms of AI integration, product development, and global market positioning?

The three-to-five year vision is to be the system of record and operating standard for personal training globally — the platform gym operators default to, the way hotel groups default to property management software or restaurants default to reservation systems. That category doesn't exist yet. We're building it.

On AI specifically: the tools already live include at-risk client detection that flags members before they churn, and a trainer coaching layer benchmarking every trainer, so managers know exactly who to develop. An AI sales agent and a daily AI management brief follow later this year — with ranked morning instructions for each gym manager, rather than a dashboard requiring interpretation.

The advantage is not the models themselves. Every platform will have access to good models. The advantage is the eight years of operational history behind ours — over 500,000 sessions a month across 700+ gyms, compounding daily. That data set gets harder to replicate every quarter.

On global positioning: the US establishes us as a credible global operator, not just a GCC success story. That matters for enterprise deals, for the fundraising narrative, and for the category we're defining. The ambition, simply stated, is to be the company that built the global infrastructure for PT — and to have done it from the UAE.

Noha Gad

Saudi Arabia’s logistics ecosystem has been shaped by its strategic location, connecting the three continents with some of the world’s busiest trade routes. Since the launch of Vision 2030, the Kingdom has made broad reforms to improve coordination and performance of the logistics sector. This included restructuring key entities across transport, ports, aviation, and rail, in addition to establishing new institutions and expanding the national carriers and infrastructure projects.  

Guided by the National Transport and Logistics Strategy (NTLS), aiming to transform Saudi Arabia into a logistics hub, the sector has expanded infrastructure, strengthened connectivity, and developed logistics zones across the Kingdom. Since its launch, over $75 billion in investment contracts have been signed across multiple transport modes, according to the Vision 2030 Annual Report 2025. These efforts have improved efficiency and reduced friction across the system, supported by digitalized services, simplified procedures, and stronger integration between entities.

The Kingdom successfully achieved groundbreaking developments to build a robust network of rail, ports, and infrastructure to strengthen the ecosystem. Key milestones included the expansion of King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam, the establishment of a new logistics corridor linking Jeddah Islamic Port to Al-Khumrah, and the launch of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. This progress reflects stronger supply chains, expanded logistics capacity, and improved integration across transport systems, alongside greater regional connectivity and streamlined customs procedures, enhancing the flow of regional and international trade.

With these developments, Saudi Arabia has advanced across global logistics indicators, supported by sustained investment in infrastructure and operational performance. The Kingdom ranked second in the G20 group with the highest cargo throughput growth rate at 32%. It was also selected among the top four emerging markets in the Agility Logistics Index in 2025.

The country also saw a notable improvement in 2024 in its global ranking for container handling, climbing to 15th place globally, as reported by Lloyd’s List. Jeddah Islamic Port moved up from 41st to 32nd, King Abdullah Port rose to 70th from 71st, and King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam advanced from 90th to 82nd, marking significant progress in the competitiveness of Saudi ports.

Mawani: A Key Enabler Revolutionizing Logistics

The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) is rapidly transforming Saudi Arabia into a logistics hub by launching new shipping lines, specialized logistics parks, and digital services to support Vision 2030. The authority has invested more than SAR 30 billion since the launch of Vision 2030 to develop the Kingdom’s ports, increasing its capacity by more than 50% in recent years.

In 2025, the authority added more than 34 new shipping services to the Saudi ports to reinforce Saudi Arabia’s position as a global logistics hub connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe. Key services included the Himalaya Express Service that connects King Abdulaziz Port with 12 global ports with a capacity of over 14,000 TEUs, and the MEDEX Service, which links Jeddah Islamic Port with 12 global ports, boasting a capacity of over 10,000 TEUs, in addition to RSX1, SJA, and BOS services.

In March, Mawani announced the launch of five new maritime shipping services to enhance the resilience of the logistics sector and ensure the continuity of supply chains and the flow of goods, ultimately reinforcing the Kingdom’s position as a global logistics hub. These services are:

1. Gulf Shuttle. This service was launched to connect King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam with Khalifa Bin Salman Port in Bahrain, with a capacity of up to 3,000 TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit). Through this service, Mawani aims to support national exports, improve operational efficiency at the port, and strengthen the Kingdom’s position as a regional and global logistics center.
2. Redex by CMA CGM. With a capacity of 2,594 TEUs, this service enhances maritime connectivity with Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, and supports global trade flows.
3. Jade by MSC. This service was added to Jeddah Islamic Port and King Abdullah Port, linking the Kingdom to eight regional and global ports and offering a capacity of 24,000 TEUs. This initiative also strengthens inland logistics connectivity between Jeddah Port and the GCC countries.
4. Maersk’s new AE19 shipping service. This high-capacity service, utilizing vessels capable of carrying up to 17,000 TEUs, links Jeddah to primary Asian hubs including Shanghai, Ningbo, Qingdao, and Xingang in China, Busan in Korea, and Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia.
5. Hapag-Lloyd’s SE4 Service. This new route links Jeddah to major international hubs in China, Korea, and Malaysia, boasting a capacity of up to 17,000 TEUs.

Logistics Corridors Initiative 

Mawani launched this integrated initiative to enable the transport of containers arriving at the Kingdom’s western coast ports through dedicated land routes to various regions of the Kingdom and GCC countries, contributing to reduced handling time and improved operational efficiency at ports. This initiative was designed to enhance supply chain efficiency and facilitate cargo movement between the Kingdom’s ports.

Port of NEOM

This strategic gateway on the Red Sea connects the three continents while advancing regional integration through multimodal corridors with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. It currently provides a comprehensive suite of services designed to meet the demands of modern trade: general and project cargo, containerized shipments, bulk consignments, warehousing, and RoRo (roll on–roll off) ferry operations. 

In April, NEOM announced the launch of a new multimodal land bridge connecting Europe to the GCC through Egypt and northwest Saudi Arabia, in partnership with Pan Marine, with support from DFDS and regional logistics players. This integration allows truck-carried freight to move directly from Europe to Egypt and into the Gulf, via the Port of NEOM, offering an alternative to previous only container flows and enabling the movement of critical goods, including FMCG and other time-sensitive cargo.

The new route is already in active use by importers from several European countries, including Italy, the UK, Germany, and Poland, and provides direct access into the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, the wider GCC, and Iraq, supporting customers seeking predictable and efficient market entry. This corridor helped reduce transit time by more than 50%, featuring over 900 KM covered by shipments.

Private Sector Contribution 

The private sector has played a pivotal role in strengthening Saudi Arabia’s position as a regional and global logistics leader by driving infrastructure improvements and forming partnerships with global firms. According to the Vision 2030 Annual Report 2025, total private sector investment surpassed SAR 30 billion by the end of 2025. 

Additionally, the private sector provided privatization investments worth more than SAR 21 billion through 16 contracts and secured SAR 11 billion contracts with local and international partners to establish 29 logistics centers.

Private-sector companies also enhanced the operational efficiency of logistics services across the Kingdom by adopting advanced technologies like automation and digital supply chain systems, improving speed and reliability for trade routes connecting Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Finally, Saudi Arabia's logistics sector stands at the forefront of Vision 2030, transformed by strategic reforms, massive infrastructure investments, and innovative initiatives driven by the National Transport and Logistics Strategy. The private sector's pivotal contributions in funding, technology adoption, and global partnerships have accelerated this progress, ensuring seamless connectivity across continents and enhanced trade efficiency. As the Kingdom continues to climb global rankings and pioneer multimodal corridors, it solidifies its role as a premier logistics hub, driving economic diversification and sustainable growth for the future.

Kholoud Hussein 

Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has undergone one of the most ambitious digital transformations in the world. What began as a broad modernization agenda under Vision 2030 has evolved into a comprehensive reengineering of everyday life—changing how citizens work, travel, receive healthcare, interact with government, shop, learn, and make financial decisions. Today, whether a Saudi needs to renew a passport, pay a bill, register a business, book a medical appointment, attend a class, or receive social services, nearly every step happens through a screen.

But this transformation is not merely a story of new apps or automated government systems. It is a story about trust. The rapid digitization of life in Saudi Arabia was only possible because citizens learned to place confidence in digital services—trusting that government portals are secure, digital payments are safe, health data is protected, and online processes are more reliable than traditional paper-based systems.

This shift did not happen overnight. Nor was it guaranteed. It required a coordinated ecosystem—government entities, regulators, startups, fintech innovators, cybersecurity institutions, and private companies—all working to build credibility, transparency, and reliability into the digital infrastructure.

Today, Saudi Arabia ranks among the world’s top countries in government digital services and cybersecurity strength. The UN E-Government Development Index lists the Kingdom among the top achievers globally; the National Cybersecurity Authority is recognized as one of the strongest frameworks in the region; and government platforms such as Absher, Tawakkalna, Najiz, and Sehhaty have become household names, embedded deeply into the daily rhythm of Saudi life.

The result is a transformation that goes beyond convenience. It has reshaped behavior, expectations, and culture—redefining what it means to navigate modern life in the Kingdom.

This is the first installment in a long-form series exploring how digital transformation is reshaping Saudi society. And there is no better starting point than the foundation of it all: digital trust.

A New Digital Rhythm: How Transformation Became a Daily Experience

To understand the depth of the shift, it is important to appreciate how digital services migrated from being an optional convenience to becoming central infrastructure.

A decade ago, a typical Saudi citizen interacting with government services often faced queues, manual paperwork, and multi-day processing times. Government offices were physical spaces; a stamped form was the gold standard of verification. That world now feels distant. Through Absher alone, citizens can complete more than 350 services—from renewing IDs to processing visas—without leaving their homes.

The Ministry of Interior has repeatedly emphasized that this shift is not only about modernization; it is about quality of life. A ministry official noted in 2024 that “citizens today expect public services to operate with the same ease and speed as the best digital companies in the world—and that is the benchmark we have adopted.”

Healthcare has undergone the same transformation. Platforms like Sehhaty and Mawid allow Saudis to book medical appointments instantly, access prescriptions, view test results, and consult doctors remotely. During the pandemic, these services became lifelines—and they remain part of everyday healthcare today.

Education, too, has become deeply digital. Students access materials online; parents monitor progress through apps; universities use AI-based systems for admissions and assessment. E-learning is not an emergency measure—it is part of the educational infrastructure.

Financial behavior has also changed dramatically. Cash usage has fallen below 20%, according to the Saudi Central Bank, and more than 95% of all transactions in retail settings now take place digitally or through contactless systems.

These transformations illustrate a deeper truth: digitization in Saudi Arabia no longer sits at the edge of society—it sits at the center.

The Meaning of Digital Trust—and Why It Matters

Digital trust refers to citizens’ confidence in the safety, transparency, reliability, and fairness of online systems. It is built on four pillars:
security, usability, accountability, and reputation.

If any of these pillars collapse, adoption weakens. But in Saudi Arabia, the opposite happened—adoption accelerated at remarkable speed.

Several factors explain why:

1. Strong national cybersecurity framework

Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in cyber defense, earning top regional rankings. This builds confidence that personal data and transactions are protected.

2. Unified and well-designed government platforms

Citizens do not navigate dozens of inconsistent portals. Instead, major services are consolidated into trusted platforms like Absher, Tawakkalna, Najiz, Sehhaty, and Ehsan.

3. Regulatory reforms that protect users

The National Data Management Office and related authorities introduced strict data governance laws that strengthened confidence in the use of personal information.

4. Visible reliability

When citizens consistently use digital services without errors or delays, confidence naturally grows. Reliability is trust in practice.

A senior official at the Digital Government Authority summarized it clearly during a recent industry conference:
“Trust is the currency of digital life. Once citizens trust a platform, everything else becomes possible.”

Behavioral Change: The Rise of the Digitally Confident Citizen

Once digital trust is established, behavior shifts rapidly. Saudi Arabia today offers several examples of large-scale behavioral changes driven by digitization.

1- A population that prefers online over offline

Surveys from 2023–2024 show that most Saudis now choose digital channels first for administrative, financial, and logistical tasks. Citizens no longer tolerate inefficiency—they expect services to be instant and accessible.

2- New expectations about transparency

Digital receipts, real-time tracking, and clear pricing have changed how Saudis evaluate services. The days of opaque processes are fading.

3- A shift in lifestyle habits

People order groceries online, track fitness digitally, use e-wallets to split bills, and rely on apps for entertainment, navigation, and health. Technology is not an add-on; it is embedded into daily routines.

4- A cultural shift toward self-service

Digital platforms empower users to complete tasks independently. This shift reduces friction and increases satisfaction.

Digital trust did not only make citizens comfortable with technology—it made them expect more from both public and private sectors.

The Role of Startups: Building Confidence Through Innovation

Saudi startups played a crucial role in strengthening digital trust. Their success stories, innovations, and reliability contributed to a broader cultural belief that digital solutions are not merely functional—they are superior to traditional ones.

Fintech startups such as STC Pay, Tweeq, HyperPay, and Tamara reshaped perceptions about digital payments and online financial services. Logistics startups improved trust in deliveries by offering real-time tracking and predictable service. Health-tech platforms democratized access to care and established proof that digital consultations can be high-quality, secure, and convenient.

Startups helped close gaps that large institutions could not fill quickly, especially in sectors where citizen expectations were evolving faster than legacy systems.

A Riyadh-based founder who runs a fast-growing fintech startup noted during a panel discussion:
“The more reliable digital services became, the more citizens trusted them. Startups had a huge role in proving that digital can be faster, safer, smoother—and that encouraged adoption across the country.”

This entrepreneurial ecosystem also reinforced the idea that digital transformation is not a government-driven process alone—it is a partnership between public institutions and private innovators.

The Economics of Trust: How Digital Confidence Generates Growth

Digital trust does not only affects behavior; it affects economic performance. When citizens trust digital systems, they transact more, invest more, consume more, and engage in entrepreneurial activity with less friction.

Saudi Arabia’s e-commerce sector, for example, grew past SAR 50 billion, driven largely by rising consumer confidence in online payments and delivery networks. Fintech adoption reached new highs, with digital wallets becoming the primary payment method for millions.

Government efficiency also surged. Digital transactions dramatically reduced operational costs across ministries, cut processing times, and improved service delivery. This efficiency increases competitiveness and makes the Kingdom a more attractive destination for foreign investment.

In short, digital trust fuels digital growth.

A Foundation for the Future: What Comes Next

Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation is still evolving. The next wave will integrate artificial intelligence more deeply into public services, expand digital health diagnostics, enable fully smart cities, automate mobility networks, and personalize services based on predictive analytics.

These advancements will require even stronger trust. But the foundation is already in place.

The Digital Government Authority has described this phase as “moving from digital services to intelligent services—where platforms anticipate needs before citizens ask.” That future requires citizens who are both digitally confident and digitally empowered. And today, Saudi Arabia has both.

Finally, the story of Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation is not only a story of technology. It is a story of confidence—built step by step, platform by platform, experience by experience. Citizens learned that digital services could be secure, reliable, efficient, and transparent. This trust enabled an ecosystem to flourish, startups to thrive, and daily life to be redefined.

Saudi society is not merely adopting digital tools—it is embracing a digital identity. And as the Kingdom moves toward a fully integrated digital future, digital trust will remain the invisible infrastructure supporting every service, every transaction, and every innovation.

Kholoud Hussein 

Saudi Arabia’s fashion sector is no longer emerging quietly on the sidelines of the Kingdom’s economic transformation. It is stepping into the foreground—structured, financed, and increasingly measurable. The unveiling of the new identity of the Fashion Investment Fund, the first specialized investment vehicle of its kind in the Kingdom, marks a decisive moment in that transition. It signals a shift from cultural encouragement to industrial strategy, from fragmented creative output to a coordinated economic sector.

For policymakers, the message is clear: fashion is no longer just about aesthetics or cultural expression. It is about value chains, job creation, export potential, and the broader ambition of building a diversified economy under Vision 2030.

The numbers alone justify the shift. Saudi Arabia’s fashion market is estimated to exceed SAR 70 billion, with projections placing it closer to SAR 90 billion within the next two years. This growth is not incidental. It is underpinned by a young population with rising purchasing power, a rapidly expanding e-commerce ecosystem, and a cultural reawakening that places local identity at the center of consumption patterns. Fashion, in this context, has become both an economic driver and a cultural statement.

Yet for years, the sector lacked the infrastructure to translate demand into sustainable growth. Designers operated in isolation. Manufacturing was largely outsourced. Financing was limited and often ill-suited to the unique cycles of fashion businesses. The result was a market rich in talent but constrained in scale.

The redefined Fashion Investment Fund is designed to change precisely that equation.

A senior official involved in the Fund’s restructuring described the shift in pragmatic terms: “We are moving from supporting designers to building an industry. That means financing production, strengthening supply chains, and ensuring Saudi brands can compete globally—not occasionally, but consistently.”

From Creative Fragmentation to Industrial Coordination

The Saudi fashion industry’s trajectory over the past decade can be traced through a series of deliberate milestones. The establishment of the Ministry of Culture in 2018 and the creation of the Fashion Commission shortly thereafter laid the institutional foundation. Subsequent years saw the introduction of training programs, international showcases, and incubators aimed at nurturing local designers.

By 2022, Saudi brands were appearing with increasing frequency on global stages, from Paris to Milan. These appearances were symbolically significant, but they also exposed a structural gap: global visibility without sufficient production capacity at home.

Designers could attract attention, but scaling remained a challenge. Production often relied on international factories, adding cost, complexity, and time. Smaller brands, in particular, struggled to meet minimum order quantities or maintain consistent supply.

The Fashion Investment Fund’s new identity addresses this bottleneck directly. By channeling capital into local manufacturing and mid-scale production facilities, it seeks to anchor the industry domestically. Analysts estimate that localizing even a fraction of current production could reduce costs by up to 30%, while retaining billions of riyals within the national economy.

Startups Redefining the Business of Fashion

Parallel to these institutional developments, a new generation of Saudi startups is reshaping how fashion operates. No longer confined to traditional design houses, the ecosystem now includes technology-driven companies addressing inefficiencies across the value chain.

Fashion-tech platforms are introducing data-driven inventory management, AI-powered demand forecasting, and digital retail solutions tailored to local consumer behavior. Resale and rental platforms are tapping into the growing global demand for circular fashion, while logistics startups are optimizing last-mile delivery for fashion e-commerce.

This evolution reflects a broader shift: fashion in Saudi Arabia is becoming as much about systems and scalability as it is about design.

A Riyadh-based entrepreneur operating in this space noted, “The conversation has changed. Investors are not just asking about collections—they are asking about margins, supply chains, and data. That’s a sign the industry is maturing.”

Estimates suggest that more than 1,000 SMEs now operate within the Saudi fashion ecosystem, many of them startups. Their growth potential is significant, particularly as they integrate technology into traditionally labor-intensive processes.

Closing the Gaps: Financing, Skills, and Global Access

The challenges facing the sector remain substantial, but they are now more clearly defined—and increasingly addressed.

Financing has historically been one of the most critical gaps. Fashion businesses often require working capital for inventory cycles, a need that traditional funding models have struggled to accommodate. The Fund introduces tailored financial instruments designed specifically for these dynamics, offering both equity investment and flexible capital solutions.

Skills development is another priority. While creative talent is abundant, specialized expertise in pattern-making, textile engineering, and fashion business management remains limited. Training programs supported by the Fund aim to build this capability at scale.

Perhaps most importantly, the Fund is working to bridge the gap between local brands and global markets. International expansion requires more than design excellence; it demands regulatory compliance, branding sophistication, and logistical infrastructure. By facilitating partnerships with global fashion institutions, the Fund seeks to position Saudi brands within international supply chains rather than at their periphery.

Economic Impact and Strategic Alignment

The broader economic implications are significant. The fashion sector is expected to generate up to 100,000 jobs by 2030, spanning design, manufacturing, marketing, and retail. Its contribution to non-oil GDP is set to increase as part of the Kingdom’s goal of raising the cultural sector’s share to 3% of GDP.

Equally important is the sector’s role in advancing social objectives. Women lead a majority of fashion startups in Saudi Arabia, making the industry a key driver of female economic participation. This aligns directly with Vision 2030’s emphasis on inclusivity and workforce diversification.

As one industry executive observed: “Fashion sits at the intersection of culture and commerce. It allows Saudi Arabia to tell its story while building a sustainable economic sector.”

Global Attention and the Next Phase of Growth

Saudi Arabia’s ambitions in fashion are beginning to attract international attention. Global brands, textile manufacturers, and investors are exploring opportunities in the Kingdom, drawn by its scale, policy support, and growing consumer base.

The emergence of creative districts in Riyadh and large-scale developments such as NEOM adds another dimension, positioning fashion within broader innovation ecosystems. These environments are expected to host design studios, manufacturing facilities, and technology startups, further integrating the sector into the national economy.

Looking ahead, the trajectory appears increasingly defined. The combination of institutional support, targeted investment, and entrepreneurial momentum is transforming fashion from a fragmented market into a coordinated industry.

A Sector Coming Into Its Own

The rebranding of the Fashion Investment Fund is, at its core, a statement of intent. It reflects a recognition that creative industries can no longer be treated as peripheral to economic strategy. In Saudi Arabia, fashion is being positioned as a sector capable of generating revenue, creating jobs, and projecting cultural influence on a global scale.

The transition is still underway, and challenges remain. But the direction is clear. What was once a collection of individual efforts is becoming a structured, investable industry—one stitched together by policy, capital, and ambition.

And in that transformation lies a broader truth about the Kingdom’s economic future: diversification is not only being built in factories and energy projects. It is also being designed, produced, and scaled—one collection at a time.

Ghada Ismail

For years, the global digital economy has been built on a simple promise: move everything to the cloud. Data from phones, sensors, machines, and platforms would travel to centralized servers, be processed, and return with insights. That model worked well when speed was not critical, and data volumes were manageable.

Today, data is being generated everywhere, in factories, vehicles, hospitals, retail stores, and entire cities. And much of it needs to be processed instantly, not after a round trip to a distant data center. This is where Edge Computing comes in.

Edge computing is the practice of processing data closer to where it is created rather than sending it to centralized cloud infrastructure. Instead of relying on faraway servers, computation happens at or near the source, whether that is a sensor, a machine, a mobile device, or a local data node.

In Saudi Arabia, this shift is becoming especially important. As the Kingdom accelerates its digital transformation under Vision 2030, the demand for real-time intelligence across industries is rising fast. From smart cities to autonomous systems, edge computing is emerging as the invisible layer that makes this transformation possible.

The Shift from Cloud to Edge

Cloud computing is not disappearing. In fact, it remains the backbone of global digital infrastructure. But it has clear limitations when speed, scale, and immediacy are required.

One of the biggest challenges is latency. When data must travel to a centralized cloud region and back, even a few milliseconds of delay can matter. In applications like autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, or remote healthcare, that delay is not acceptable.

Bandwidth is another constraint. As billions of devices come online under the Internet of Things, continuously sending raw data to the cloud becomes inefficient and expensive. Not every piece of data needs to travel that far.

Edge computing solves these problems by complementing the cloud rather than replacing it. The cloud still handles heavy analytics, long-term storage, and training of large AI models. Edge systems handle immediate decision-making, filtering, and local processing.

This shift is tightly connected to three major technological trends shaping Saudi Arabia’s digital future.

First is artificial intelligence. AI systems increasingly require real-time inference at the point of action. Second is IoT growth, where sensors and connected devices generate constant streams of data. Third is real-time decision-making, which is becoming essential in sectors ranging from logistics to energy.

Together, these forces are pushing computing closer to the edge.

Why Saudi Arabia Is Positioned for Edge Computing

Saudi Arabia is not just adopting digital infrastructure; it is building it on a national scale.

Under Vision 2030, the Kingdom is investing heavily in becoming a global technology and innovation hub. This includes everything from smart infrastructure and digital government services to giga-projects designed around data-driven ecosystems.

Projects such as NEOM, the Red Sea development, and other smart city initiatives are designed from the ground up to rely on real-time data flows. These environments cannot function efficiently if every sensor, camera, or autonomous system must depend on distant cloud servers. They require distributed intelligence, which is exactly what edge computing provides.

Another key factor is data sovereignty. As digital systems become more critical to national infrastructure, there is a growing emphasis on keeping sensitive data within local borders. Edge computing enables localized processing, reducing reliance on external data centers while improving security and regulatory control.

In parallel, Saudi Arabia’s expanding cloud infrastructure, supported by global players and local providers, creates a strong foundation for edge-cloud hybrid systems. Rather than choosing between the cloud and the edge, the Kingdom is increasingly building an integrated ecosystem that uses both.

Key Use Cases Across Industries

The real impact of edge computing becomes clear when looking at how it is being applied across industries in Saudi Arabia. In the energy sector, particularly in large-scale oil and gas operations, vast volumes of operational data are generated across upstream and downstream systems. Edge computing architectures can enable faster monitoring of equipment, predictive maintenance, and real-time anomaly detection by processing data closer to the source rather than relying solely on centralized systems. This approach helps improve operational efficiency and reduce downtime across critical energy infrastructure.

In smart cities and giga-projects such as NEOM and the Red Sea developments, edge computing plays a foundational role. Autonomous transport systems, smart grids, surveillance networks, and environmental sensors all rely on instant data processing. Without edge infrastructure, the responsiveness required for these environments would not be achievable.

Healthcare is another area seeing rapid transformation. Real-time diagnostics, connected medical devices, and remote patient monitoring systems require instant data interpretation. Edge computing allows hospitals and healthcare providers to process patient data locally, reducing delays that could affect critical decisions.

In logistics and retail, edge computing supports automation in warehouses, real-time inventory tracking, and smarter supply chain management. Delivery fleets, for example, can benefit from instant route optimization based on live traffic and operational data.

The gaming and entertainment industry is also becoming a major beneficiary. Cloud gaming, augmented reality, and immersive digital experiences require ultra-low latency. Edge nodes placed closer to users significantly improve performance, enabling smoother gameplay and more responsive digital environments.

The Emerging Edge Ecosystem in Saudi Arabia

As demand grows, a new ecosystem of infrastructure and technology providers is beginning to take shape in Saudi Arabia and the wider region, supporting the shift toward distributed and edge-enabled computing.

Local players are laying much of the groundwork. Edarat Group is one example, offering data center engineering, cloud services, and edge AI capabilities, while also partnering with global firms to deploy modular infrastructure closer to where data is generated. This positions it as part of the emerging layer, enabling more distributed computing models.

Another company contributing to this foundation is Ezditek, which is investing in large-scale data center capacity and digital infrastructure, including projects linked to NEOM. While not exclusively focused on edge computing, such investments are essential in building the physical backbone that edge architectures depend on.

On the global side, specialized technology firms are also entering the Saudi market. EdgeCortix, for instance, is expanding into the Kingdom through the National Semiconductor Hub, bringing energy-efficient AI accelerator technologies designed specifically for edge environments. This reflects a broader industry shift toward embedding AI processing directly into devices and localized nodes, rather than relying solely on centralized cloud infrastructure.

Together, these companies represent an early-stage but rapidly evolving ecosystem that combines infrastructure providers, AI hardware innovators, and distributed computing platforms.

Challenges Slowing Adoption

Despite strong momentum, edge computing adoption in Saudi Arabia still faces several challenges.

One of the most significant is infrastructure cost. Deploying distributed edge nodes across a large geography requires substantial investment in hardware, connectivity, and maintenance. Unlike centralized cloud models, edge systems are physically dispersed, making them more complex to scale.

Another challenge is talent. Edge computing sits at the intersection of cloud engineering, networking, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. The demand for professionals with cross-disciplinary expertise is growing faster than supply, creating a skills gap that needs to be addressed through education and training.

Integration is also a technical hurdle. Most enterprises in Saudi Arabia are already operating on cloud platforms. Integrating edge systems with existing cloud architectures requires careful design to ensure consistency, security, and data synchronization.

Finally, the market is still in its early stages. While interest is high, large-scale deployments are still emerging, meaning that best practices, standards, and regulatory frameworks are still evolving.

The Future ahead

The next phase of edge computing in Saudi Arabia will likely be defined by convergence.

Edge and artificial intelligence are becoming deeply interconnected. Instead of sending data to the cloud for AI processing, models are increasingly being deployed directly at the edge. This allows systems to make decisions in real time, from autonomous machines to smart infrastructure.

At the same time, the Kingdom is expected to see a rise in localized data infrastructure. More edge data centers, micro data centers, and distributed computing nodes will emerge closer to population centers and industrial zones.

This evolution positions Saudi Arabia as a potential regional edge computing hub, not just a consumer of global technology but a producer and exporter of advanced digital infrastructure capabilities.

Investor interest is also expected to increase as the ecosystem matures. As edge use cases become more visible and commercially viable, startups and venture capital activity in this space will likely accelerate.

Conclusion: Edge as Invisible Infrastructure

Edge computing will not be something most people see or interact with directly. It will not be a visible platform or a consumer-facing application. Instead, it will function as invisible infrastructure, powering the systems that define modern life.

From smart cities that respond instantly to environmental changes, to autonomous systems that make split-second decisions, to digital services that operate without delay, edge computing will sit quietly beneath it all.

In Saudi Arabia, this shift is particularly significant. As the Kingdom builds one of the world’s most ambitious digital transformation agendas, edge computing is becoming one of its most essential enabling layers.

It is not replacing the cloud. It is completing it.