Saudi Arabia has announced that it has received over $9 billion investments from top global firms to support future technologies and emerging companies at LEAP 2023 event. These include big ones such as $2.1 billion from Microsoft and $1.5 billion from Oracle.
More than 700 experts, scientists and specialized companies from around the world were at LEAP 2023, the largest global gathering for technology and digitization developments, which concluded recently.
The opening day of the conference witnessed the launch of the first Metaverse Academy in Mena region by Meta, headquartered in Saudi Arabia, the launch of Hektar by WEO Technology and Camel Lab, a social media app with a variety of content, and the announcement of Beem by Mena Communication and STC, a new app with business features, high-quality voice and video calling, and instant messaging.
The even saw experts discuss the latest developments in virtual reality, creative economy, edutech, retail, Fourth Industrial Revolution, future energy, smart cities, fintech, and healthtech, said the organisers.
During a keynote speech at the event, Engineer Abdullah Alsawaha, Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology, announced investments worth $9 billion to support future technologies, digital entrepreneurship, and tech startups, in order to enhance the Kingdom’s position as the largest digital economy in the Middle East and North Africa region.
The minister underlined that Riyadh’s hosting of the LEAP 2023 conference confirms the great support of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the digital and technological transformation journey, and his keenness to keep pace with the rapid developments in the world, in order to achieve the goals of Vision 2030 in promising sectors and future technologies.
Alsawaha pointed out that the investments included $400 million from Huawei for cloud infrastructure for its services in the kingdom, $2.1 billion from Microsoft for a global superscalar cloud, $1.5 billion from Oracle to expand its business by launching new cloud regions in Saudi Arabia, and $1.1 billion for the opening of a Zoom cloud area in the Kingdom in collaboration with Aramco.
He also pointed to global and local investments of $4.5 billion in various fields.-TradeArabia News Service