Riyadh – Sharikat Mubasher: Qualcomm, Aramco, and the Research, Development and Innovation Authority (RDIA) marked the end of the first year of the DISAI mentorship program, an initiative designed to nurture Saudi Arabia’s next generation of deep-tech startups.

As per a recent press release, the program, which is held under the Design in Saudi Arabia with AI banner, supports early-stage founders working in fields such as Industrial IoT, robotics, 5G, precision medicine, and climate-tech.

Developed through Qualcomm Technologies International and Aramco’s Saudi Accelerated Innovation Lab (AramcoSAIL), the program offers participating startups hands-on guidance from Qualcomm and Aramco engineers, access to advanced 5G, IoT, and AI platforms, and workspace within AramcoSAIL’s incubation facilities. Startups also benefit from business mentoring, commercialization support, and intellectual property training to help them protect and scale their innovations.

This year’s cohort featured six startups: Agile Loop, Manyface, Mobisense, Orbital Universe, PixConvey, and ThakaaMed, each tackling challenges in areas ranging from carbon monitoring to AI-enabled healthcare diagnostics.

Program partners said the initiative is strengthening the Kingdom’s emerging high-tech ecosystem and reinforcing Saudi Arabia’s ambition to become a regional hub for advanced technology.

Executives from Qualcomm, Aramco, and RDIA emphasized that the first DISAI cohort reflects the country’s growing talent base and its push to build long-term capabilities in AI and deep tech as part of Vision 2030.