ALBAWABA - With over 1,800 local and foreign exhibitors, more than 1,000 technical specialists, and 600 startup firms, LEAP24, the biggest technology show in the globe, has opened its doors to visitors in Riyadh on Monday, with Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Abdulla Al-Swaha, announcing the conference will hold over its three days, $11.9 billion worth of investment agreements as reported by Arab News.
LEAP24, held from Mar. 4–7, is organized by the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming, and Drones in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology with Global IT behemoths including Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, Cisco, SAP, Amazon Web Services, Alibaba, Huawei, Ericsson, and others participating in the event’s current version.
According to Asharq Al-Awsat News, it aims to showcase the most recent technological advancements and presents the government's AI ambitions and current breakthroughs with government agencies competing to present their technological progress.
Over the span of its run, the LEAP conference has seen significant growth, with the total number of launches jumping from $6.4 billion in the first edition to over $9 billion in the second, and the number of visitors rose from 100,000 in the first edition to over 172,000 in the second.
Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdulla Al-Swaha said throughout the opening remarks of the yearly event that expenditures in the cloud infrastructure and generative artificial intelligence progression sectors are expected to be major recipients of the fundraising rush, as Arab News writes, adding that the Kingdom’s digital economy is “the most bold and audacious success story of the 21st century.”
