Riyadh - Sharikat Mubasher: LEAP 2025, the world’s leading tech event, is set to showcase major announcements that will shape the future of technology, drive strategic investments, and foster innovative partnerships, ultimately solidifying Saudi Arabia’s position as a global tech hub.
According to the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), the first day of LEAP 2025 witnessed strategic investments exceeding $14.9 billion.
This included $10.9 billion in strategic investments focused on infrastructure and artificial intelligence (AI), alongside startup funding rounds with participation from key players such as Mobily, Datavolt, Zoom, Tencent Cloud, SKYFive, Alfanar, Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR), and others.
Alat, the Saudi manufacturing company owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), and Lenovo unveiled plans to establish an advanced manufacturing and technology center based on AI and robotics, with investments totaling $2 billion. Lenovo will also establish a regional headquarters in Riyadh as part of this partnership.
Aramco Digital, the digital and technology subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, and Groq, a US-based company specializing in AI inference technology, announced their strategic partnership to invest $1.5 billion to expand Saudi Arabia’s AI inference infrastructure. This will fund the launch of the world’s largest AI inference node in the Kingdom, utilizing LPUs technology.
Databricks revealed plans to invest $300 million to build full PaaS (platform as a service) offerings to empower application developers to drive innovation.
SambaNova will also invest $140 million to establish advanced AI infrastructure and launch a large language model (LLM) as a service, further reinforcing Saudi Arabia’s position as a regional hub for innovation and technology.
Furthermore, Google Cloud plans to expand its investments in Saudi Arabia to enhance the Kingdom’s digital infrastructure for AI by establishing a global hub to serve regional and global demand.
Another significant milestone is Alibaba Cloud’s announcement to launch the AI Empowerment Program in Saudi Arabia, introducing Qwen LLM and Alibaba Cloud PAI platform on the Saudi region's public cloud.
The leading manufacturer of advanced semiconductors for mobile phones and commercial wireless applications, Qualcomm, introduced ALLam AI PC and showcased a model of ALLaM on Qualcomm AI cloud.
Finally, Gulf Data Hub (GDH) and KKR unveiled their strategy to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s leadership in AI through the development of data centers with 300 MW capacity.
LEAP 2025 takes place in Riyadh from 9 to 12 February, with the participation of over 1,800 exhibitors, more than 1,000 speakers, and over 680 startups. It gathers global leaders from the public and private sectors, top innovators, and key stakeholders in tech investment, serving as a leading investment platform that provides investors and entrepreneurs worldwide.
