As the Kingdom continues to spotlight its finest innovations at LEAP, artificial intelligence has been central to what the brightest minds are driving for internal operational transformations at leading companies including Red Sea Global and WeBook, which are fueling the nation’s economic boom in green technology, tourism, and international relations.
Speaking to Arab News on the sidelines of LEAP, an acronym for Leading Edge Advancement and Progress, leaders in the industry elaborated on the ways their pioneer companies are helping to build a resilient economy for the Kingdom.
They highlighted their AI expansion strategies that have opened doors in sectors including green energy and tourism, and are helping to build bridges with companies in the US and elsewhere.
Nadeem Bakhsh, CEO and co-founder of WeBook, told Arab News how the company has initiated a series of breakthroughs in the Kingdom’s era of transformation, specifically within industries of tourism, entertainment, and culture, all while leveraging AI as a tool for internal operations and customer experience.
Bakhsh spoke to Arab News on the evolution of AI at WeBook specifically, a platform that has helped scale the Kingdom’s tourism and entertainment operations from the ground up.
“Almost every meeting in every department they all started showing me their own software and their own dashboards and everything they were building.
“I mean, I had my CFO (show he) had built something, and, I had my legal team come in and show me the platform that they built. And that was just one week.”
Bakhsh elaborated on the level of commitment made by both WeBook and the Kingdom, to create a model that is now followed by international onlookers at LEAP.
He said the industry looked very different in the past. “I think as entrepreneurs we’re very lucky to have the leaders that we have.”
Going on to elaborate that the Kingdom did not “leapfrog” to LEAP, but instead it was built on the gradual growth of infrastructure, education, and leadership.
He elaborated that the standards maintained by the leadership help direction, providing an example of WeBook’s ability to speak to a variety of ministries due to the streamlining and regulations in place by the government.
He said the nation’s leaders have made ventures significantly easier for companies in the Kingdom.
The effort that has created a trickle-down effect from leadership down to innovative strategies in the sphere of AI, as Bakhsh described, has proven to be inspirational in building relations with foreign companies.
On the influence of the Kingdom’s dedication to AI down to cross-department measures such as with WeBook, as well as startup Saudi companies, vice president of Middle East Affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, Steve Lutes, spoke to Arab News on growing American-Saudi relations in the industry.
He elaborated on their AI-acceleration business delegation: “One thing we’ve been talking about is the sheer diversity of the level of interest that the delegation really showcases.”
He added: “I think you’re also looking at the Kingdom not only as a hub for a region, but the region and beyond, I would say.
“I think there’s just so many windows of opportunity and it really depends on your company, where you’re at, in terms of your maturity, and really what you’re going to look at in terms of the menu of opportunities that you can come here to the Kingdom and draw upon.”
Lutes went on to share that sustaining the momentum surrounding those bilateral relations in the field of AI comes from that same stream of leadership that Bakhsh elaborated on.
“With his highness the crown prince, I think there is a drive and it’s an intense drive, it’s a focused drive, to make an AI-enabled, an AI country. You see that and you feel that in digital even more broadly.
“And then you match that with US companies, US innovations, US tech, from large multinationals, like the Magnificent Seven down to startups.”
Lutes said AI developments are making the sector central to economic relations between the Kingdom and the US.
This commitment continues to prove the value of the Kingdom’s investment in innovation within the industry as a pathway to economic diversity, one that Lutes said is embedded in a multitude of sectors.
He added that AI can bring productivity to a range of sectors in the economy including sustainable energy and tourism.
On the Kingdom’s ability to align sustainable energy with AI, Sultan Moraished, Red Sea Global’s chief technology officer, spoke to Arab News on the pioneering strides made in the Kingdom to model innovation in both prominent fields globally.
Red Sea Global is laying the groundwork for solving the ongoing debate surrounding energy usage in the field of AI.
Moraished said Red Sea Global prioritizes efficient green energy usage and solar power in its AI integration, which is the first of its kind on an international scale.
“We have a data center that is fully powered by solar power. Can you imagine, a data center which is the area that eats power, is being powered by solar. And we are the only data center in the world that is powered by solar, and yet we are managing it at Red Sea.”
He added: “All of the power that is there is powered by the solar and the batteries that are getting the power in the morning, so this has not been easily, this has been done by a complete study of every development that we do and how the power is going to be consumed in that entity, and how our solar farm is responding to that.”
Moraished added that while smart innovations have been at the center of Red Sea Global from the very beginning, the company still maintains a level of human interaction that is necessary.
He said that despite being pioneers in the industry in the Kingdom and globally, he would lead with that word of advice on human oversight as a step to international entities looking to the country as a leader in AI.
Across all perspectives shared at LEAP, it is evident that the Kingdom’s AI ambitions are taking shape across business, sustainability and international cooperation.
From WeBook’s companywide use of AI and Red Sea Global’s integration of technology and renewable energy, to growing commercial ties with US companies, these developments reflect the role AI is playing in the Kingdom’s wider economic transformation.
As investment in infrastructure, talent and leadership continues to flow, the Kingdom is strengthening its position as a regional technology hub while expanding its influence across the global sector.
