Amazon Web Services, the world’s biggest cloud services provider, is to launch an AWS infrastructure Region (AWS Region) in Saudi Arabia, it was announced at the Leap 2024 technology conference, which began in Riyadh on Monday.
“We’re proud to bring AWS to the kingdom,” said Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, who addressed a packed auditorium at Leap.
According to Amazon, AWS will invest $5.3 billion in Saudi Arabia and establish two innovation centres in the kingdom.
The new AWS Region will allow businesses, organisations and start-ups to serve their customers by using Amazon's data centres within the kingdom to host various applications or services, the company said.
“With this announcement, the kingdom today is the only nation in the region that has all hyperscalers,” he said, referring to information technology infrastructure projects from companies such as IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell and Datavolt, among others.
“The new AWS Region will give developers, start-ups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as healthcare, education, gaming, and non-profit organisations, greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centres located in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” said a statement from Amazon on Monday.
The world’s biggest e-commerce company has been in talks about increasing its presence and investment in Saudi Arabia since 2017.
In 2023, Amazon launched an academy in the kingdom to support its efforts to train 30,000 Saudis through a technology development platform.
The announcements made during the opening keynote speech delivered by Mr Alswaha were plentiful and featured several guests.
Rayyanah Barnawi, the first female Arab astronaut to spend time on the International Space Station, briefly shared the stage with Mr Alswaha during the opening speech, showcasing Saudi Arabia’s efforts to increase the percentage of women participating in science and technology fields throughout the kingdom.
According to Mr Alswaha, women make up 35 per cent of the technology workforce in Saudi Arabia as of 2024. In 2022 it was just 10 per cent.
Artificial intelligence also took up a large portion of the opening keynote speech, with a new AI Large Language Model being introduced.
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, announced AramcoMetabrain, an LLM based on 90 years' worth of public and proprietary data.
It was also announced that Aramco would be partnering with Groq, a US-based AI chip company that it says can offer a speedier implementation of AI.
Jonathan Ross, Groq’s founder and chief executive spoke briefly about the partnership, giving Mr Alswaha a high five on stage.
“What you’re seeing are the fastest language processing unit chips on the planet,” he said.
“We started Groq in Silicon Valley because of the opportunity, but as you deploy this technology here, this could be the place where the opportunity is going forward,” he added.
It is expected that at least 172,000 people will attend the Leap technology conference, which is now in its third year, over four days.
Approximately 600 start-ups, 1,100 speakers and 1,800 technology exhibitors are also expected to take part.
"This is Vision 2030 in action," Mr Alswaha said, referring to Saudi Arabia's plan, announced in 2016, to diversify its economy away from oil, improve female workforce participation, boost non-oil revenue and reduce the unemployment rate.
According to Mr Alswaha, between 2021 and 2023, Saudi Arabia's digital economy grew from $111 billion to $123 billion.
"We've taken headwinds and turned them into tailwinds," he enthusiastically told the crowd, noting the tougher-than-usual climate many start-ups are working within, amid rising interest rates and other factors.
"We've shown resilience ... we've become the largest, fastest, and highest tech success story of the 21st century," he said.
A video accompanied Mr Alswaha's speech, showcasing older video clips of Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, Apple chief Tim Cook, and IBM chairman Arvind Krishna, among others, discussing their companies' previous investments and plans for Saudi Arabia.
Another announcement was made by Alat, a sustainable technology manufacturing company backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which has joined forces with King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology to boost the development of semiconductor industry in the kingdom.
The agreement aims to grow and diversify the Saudi economy and make it a global centre for the semiconductor industry.
It will support national goals for research, development and innovation in the energy and industry sectors, through the localisation of the semiconductor industry, and by fostering talent for the sector, a joint statement said.
In another announcement made at Leap, Eviq – an electric vehicle infrastructure company – teamed up with ICT infrastructure provider Tawal to build the future of electric mobility in the kingdom.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
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Temple numbers
Expected completion: 2022
Height: 24 meters
Ground floor banquet hall: 370 square metres to accommodate about 750 people
Ground floor multipurpose hall: 92 square metres for up to 200 people
First floor main Prayer Hall: 465 square metres to hold 1,500 people at a time
First floor terrace areas: 2,30 square metres
Temple will be spread over 6,900 square metres
Structure includes two basements, ground and first floor
