ALBAWABA – Among the Gulf’s growing efforts to help drive the region technologically, with UAE recently announcing their Artificial Intelligence council, Saudi Arabia under Mohammad Bin Salman's vision has also been attracting foreign companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon to the kingdom.
The Saudi government announced in Aug. 2023 a $200 million fund as part of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology's (KAUST) strategy for early-stage investments in regional and international high-tech businesses, the plan intends to turn research into economically beneficial advancements in different fields like health, energy, and sustainable environments, aligning with the kingdom’s 2030 vision to diversify income.
To limit the billions in spending leaving the kingdom and stay in the local circulation, the Saudi Government decided to not provide established foreign companies contracts unless they open headquarters on its grounds, with a deadline of Jan. 1st, which prompted firms like Oracle and Pfizer to position themselves accordingly by the end of 2023.
Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have recently received licenses to open up regional offices in Riyadh, and are among the first to speed up their presence and services provided in the region.
According to Fortune.com, many business and political analysts took notice and interpreted these recent developments as fierce competition with the UAE, particularly Dubai, where a number of global companies favored establishing regional offices for the Middle Eastern region due to its location and reasonable taxes.
Google, who recently announced a cloud center in Qatar, which is expected to bring $18.6 billion to the Qatari economy, followed by another one in Saudi Arabia, said that it is aligning with authorities regarding its presence in the kingdom, with Microsoft saying in a statement to Bloomberg, that “In this very diverse region, we have a number of headquarters including one in Saudi Arabia”.
