Headline, May 07 2024/ ''' SAUDI A.I. SAILS '''

''' SAUDI A.I. SAILS '''

! FIRST AND FOREMOST ! : THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY is the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, just as it belongs to every student in the world.

Saudi Arabia created a $100 billion fund this year to invest in A.I. and other technology. It is in talks with Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and other investors to put an additional $40 billion into A.I. 

The spending blitz stems from a generational effort outlined in 2016 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and known as '' Vision 2030.'' Saudi Arabia is racing to diversify its oil-rich economy in areas like tech, tourism, culture and sports.

If Prince Mohammed succeeds, he will place Saudi Arabia in the middle of an escalating global competition among China, the United States and other countries like France that have made breakthroughs in generative A.I.

Combined with A.I. efforts by its neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia's plan has the potential to create a new power center in the global tech industry.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPMENT DEPENDS on two key things that Saudi Arabia has in abundance : money and energy.

The kingdom is pouring oil profits into buying semiconductors, building supercomputers, attracting talent and constructing data centers powered by its plentiful electricity. The bet is that Saudi Arabia will eventually export A.I. computing muscle.

Majid Ali AI Shehry, the general manager of studies for the Saudi Data and A.I. Authority, a government agency overseeing A.I. initiatives, said 70 percent of the strategic goals outlined in Vision 2030 involved using data and A.I.

'' We see A.I. as one of the main enablers of all sectors,'' he said in an interview at the agency's office in Riyadh, where employees nearby worked on an Arabic chatbot called Allam.

Those goals have permeated the kingdom. Posters for Vision 2030 are visible throughout Riyadh. Young Saudis describe the crown prince as running the kingdom as if it were a startup. Many tech leaders have parroted the sentiment.

'' Saudi has a founder, '' Ben Horowitz, a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, said last year at a conference in Miami. '' You don't call him a founder. You call him his royal highness.''

THE GOLD RUSH : Aladin Ben, a German Tunisian A.I. entrepreneur, was in Bali last year when he received an email from a Saudi agency working on A.I. issues. The agency knew his software start-up, Memorality, which designs tools to make it easier for businesses to incorporate A.I. and wanted to work together.

Since then, Mr. Ben, 31, has traveled to Saudi Arabia five times. He is now negotiating with the kingdom on an investment and other partnerships.

But his company may need to incorporate in Saudi Arabia to get the full benefit of the government's offer, which includes buying hundreds of annual subscriptions to his software in a contract worth roughly $800,000 a month.

'' If you want a serious deal, you need to be here, '' Mr. Ben said in an interview in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia was once viewed as a source of few-strings attached cash. Now it has added conditions to its deals, requiring many companies to establish roots to the kingdom to partake in the financial windfall.

That was evident at GAIA, an A.I. start-up accelerator, for which Saudi officials announced $1 billion in funding last month.

Each start-up in the program receives a grant worth about $40,000 in exchange for spending at least three months in Riyadh, along with a potential $100,000 investment. Entrepreneurs are required to register their company in the kingdom and spend 50 percent of their investment in Saudi Arabia.

They also receive access to computing power purchased from Amazon and Google free of charge.

About 50 start-ups - including from Taiwan, South Korea, Sweden, Poland and the United States - have gone through GAIA 's program since it started last year.

'' We want to attract talent, and we want them to stay,'' said Mohammad AI-mazyad, a program manager for GAIA. '' We used to rely heavily on oil, and now we want to diversify.''

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on A.I., Talent, Funding and Future continues. The World Students Society thanks authors Adam Satariano and Paul Mozur.

With most respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of Saudi Arabia and then the world.

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