\n<\/p>\n
On a Monday morning last month, tech executives, engineers and sales representatives from Amazon, Google, TikTok and other companies endured a three-hour traffic jam as their cars crawled toward a mammoth conference at an event space in the desert, 50 miles outside Riyadh.<\/p>\n
The lure: billions of dollars in Saudi money as the kingdom seeks to build a tech industry to complement its oil dominance.<\/p>\n
To bypass the congestion, frustrated eventgoers drove onto the highway shoulder, kicking up plumes of desert sand as they sped past those following traffic rules. A lucky few took advantage of a special freeway exit dedicated to \u201cV.V.I.P.s\u201d \u2014 very, very important people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cTo the Future,\u201d a sign read on the approach to the event, called Leap.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
More than 200,000 people converged at the conference, including Adam Selipsky, chief executive of Amazon\u2019s cloud computing division, who announced<\/a> a $5.3 billion investment in Saudi Arabia for data centers and artificial intelligence technology. Arvind Krishna, the chief executive of IBM, spoke of what a government minister called a \u201clifetime friendship\u201d with the kingdom. Executives from Huawei and dozens of other firms made speeches. More than $10 billion in deals were done there, according to Saudi Arabia\u2019s state press agency.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a great country,\u201d Shou Chew, TikTok\u2019s chief executive, said during the conference, heralding the video app\u2019s growth in the kingdom. \u201cWe expect to invest even more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Everybody in tech seems to want to make friends with Saudi Arabia right now as the kingdom has trained its sights on becoming a dominant player in A.I. \u2014 and is pumping in eye-popping sums to do so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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<\/a> into A.I. companies. In March, the government said it would invest $1 billion in a Silicon Valley-inspired start-up accelerator to lure A.I. entrepreneurs to the kingdom. The initiatives easily dwarf those of most major nation-state investments, like Britain\u2019s $100 million pledge for the Alan Turing Institute.<\/p>\n The spending blitz stems from a generational effort outlined in 2016 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman<\/a> and known as \u201cVision 2030.\u201d Saudi Arabia is racing to diversify its oil-rich economy in areas like tech, tourism, culture and sports \u2014 investing a reported $200 million a year for the soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and planning a 100-mile-long mirrored skyscraper<\/a> in the desert.<\/p>\n For the tech industry, Saudi Arabia has long been a funding spigot. But the kingdom is now redirecting its oil wealth into building a domestic tech industry, requiring international firms to establish roots there if they want its money.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s plan has the potential to create a new power center in the global tech industry.<\/p>\n \u201cI hereby invite all dreamers, innovators, investors and thinkers to join us, here in the kingdom, to achieve our ambitions together,\u201d Prince Mohammed remarked in a 2020 speech about A.I.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n His ambitions are geopolitically delicate as China and the United States seek to carve out spheres of influence over A.I. to shape the future of critical technologies.<\/p>\n In Washington, many worry that the kingdom\u2019s goals and authoritarian leanings could work against U.S. interests \u2014 for instance, if Saudi Arabia ends up providing computing power to Chinese researchers and companies. This month, the White House brokered a deal for Microsoft<\/a> to invest in G42, an A.I. company in the Emirates, which was intended partly to diminish China\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For China, the Persian Gulf region offers a big market, access to deep-pocketed investors and a chance to wield influence in countries traditionally allied with the United States. China\u2019s form of A.I.-powered surveillance has already been embedded into policing in the region<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some industry leaders have begun to arrive. J\u00fcrgen Schmidhuber, an A.I. pioneer who now heads an A.I. program at Saudi Arabia\u2019s premier research university, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, recalled the kingdom\u2019s roots centuries ago as a center for science and mathematics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt would be lovely to contribute to a new world and resurrect this golden age,\u201d he said. \u201cYes, it will cost money, but there\u2019s a lot of money in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n The willingness to spend was front and center last month at a gala in Riyadh hosted by the Saudi government, which coincided with the Leap conference. Hollywood klieg lights blazed in the sky above the city as guests arrived in chauffeured Maseratis, Mercedes-Benzes and Porsches. Inside a 300,000-square-foot parking garage that had been converted two years ago into one of the world\u2019s largest start-up spaces, attendees mingled, debated opening offices in Riyadh and sipped pomegranate juice and cardamom-flavored coffee.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something happening here,\u201d said Hilmar Veigar Petursson, the chief executive of CCP Games, the Icelandic company behind the popular game Eve Online, who was at the gala. \u201cI got a very similar sense when I came back from China in 2005.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Prince Mohammed\u2019s Vision 2030 project, unveiled eight years ago, seems taken from a science-fiction script.<\/p>\n Under the plan, new futuristic cities will be built in the desert along the Red Sea, oriented around tech and digital services. And the kingdom, which has piled billions into tech start-ups like Uber<\/a> and investment vehicles such as SoftBank\u2019s Vision Fund, would spend more.<\/p>\n That drew Silicon Valley\u2019s attention. When Prince Mohammed visited California in 2018, Sergey Brin, Google\u2019s co-founder, escorted him through a tree-lined path at the company\u2019s campus. Tim Cook, Apple\u2019s chief executive, showed him the company\u2019s products. The prince also traveled to Seattle, where he met with Bill Gates of Microsoft; Satya Nadella, the company\u2019s chief executive; and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.<\/p>\n It was a key moment for Saudi Arabia\u2019s tech ambitions as Prince Mohammed presented himself as a youthful, digitally savvy reformer. But enthusiasm dimmed a few months later when Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of the crown prince, was killed at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Prince Mohammed denied involvement, but the C.I.A. concluded that he had approved the killing<\/a>.<\/p>\n For a brief period, it was seen as untoward to associate with Saudi Arabia. Business executives canceled visits to the kingdom. But the lure of its money was ultimately too strong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A.I. 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.<\/p>\n Majid Ali AlShehry, 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 96 strategic goals outlined in Vision 2030 involved using data and A.I.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see A.I. as one of the main enablers of all sectors,\u201d he said in an interview at the agency\u2019s office in Riyadh, where employees nearby worked on an Arabic chatbot called Allam.<\/p>\n 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 start-up. Many tech leaders have parroted the sentiment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cSaudi has a founder,\u201d Ben Horowitz, a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, said last year at a conference<\/a> in Miami. \u201cYou don\u2019t call him a founder. You call him his royal highness.\u201d<\/p>\n Some question whether Saudi Arabia can become a global tech hub. The kingdom has faced scrutiny for its human rights record, intolerance to homosexuality and brutal heat. But for those in the tech world who descended on Riyadh last month, the concerns seemed secondary to the dizzying amount of deal-making underway.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are just pouring money into A.I.,\u201d said Peter Lillian, an engineer at Groq, a U.S. maker of semiconductors that power A.I. systems. Groq is working with Neom, a futuristic city that Saudi Arabia is building in the desert, and Aramco, the state oil giant. \u201cWe\u2019re doing so many deals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Situated along the Red Sea\u2019s turquoise waters, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology has become a site of the U.S.-Chinese technological showdown.<\/p>\n The university, known as KAUST, is central to Saudi Arabia\u2019s plans to vault to A.I. leadership. Modeled on universities like Caltech, KAUST has brought in foreign A.I. leaders and provided computing resources to build an epicenter for A.I. research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n To achieve that aim, KAUST has often turned to China to recruit students and professors and to strike research partnerships<\/a>, alarming American officials. They fear students and professors from Chinese military-linked universities will use KAUST to sidestep U.S. sanctions and boost China in the race for A.I. supremacy<\/a>, analysts and U.S. officials said.<\/p>\n Of particular concern is the university\u2019s construction of one of the region\u2019s fastest supercomputers, which needs thousands of microchips made by Nvidia, the biggest maker of precious chips that power A.I. systems. The university\u2019s chip order, with an estimated value of more than $100 million, is being held up by a review from the U.S. government, which must provide an export license before the sale can go through.<\/p>\n Both China and the United States want to keep Prince Mohammed close. A.I. ambitions add a new layer of geopolitical significance to a kingdom already key to Middle East policy and global energy supplies. A 2016 visit to Saudi Arabia by Xi Jinping, China\u2019s leader, paved the way for new tech cooperation. Accustomed to top-down industrial policy, Chinese companies have expanded rapidly in the kingdom, forming partnerships with major state-owned companies. The United States has pushed Saudi Arabia to pick a side, but Prince Mohammed seems content to benefit from both nations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Schmidhuber, the researcher leading KAUST\u2019s A.I. efforts, has seen the jostling up close. Considered a pioneer<\/a> of modern A.I. \u2014 students in a lab he led included a founder of DeepMind, an innovative A.I. company now owned by Google \u2014 he was lured to the desert in 2021.<\/p>\n He was reluctant to move at first, he said, but university officials, via a headhunter, \u201ctried to make it more attractive and even more attractive and even more attractive for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Now Mr. Schmidhuber is awaiting the completion of the supercomputer, Shaheen 3, which is a chance to attract more top talent to the Persian Gulf and to give researchers access to computing power often reserved for major companies.<\/p>\n \u201cNo other university is going to have a similar thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Some in Washington fear the supercomputer may provide researchers from Chinese universities access to cutting-edge computing resources they would not have in China. More than a dozen students and staff members at KAUST are from military-linked Chinese universities known as the Seven Sons of National Defense, according to a review by The New York Times. During the Trump administration, the United States blocked entry to students from those universities over concerns they could take sensitive technologies back to China\u2019s military.<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States should quickly move to deny export licenses to any entity if the end user is likely to be a P.R.C. actor affiliated with the People\u2019s Liberation Army,\u201d Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the default U.S. policy was to share technology with Saudi Arabia, a critical ally in the gulf, but that there were national security concerns and risks with A.I.<\/p>\n The Commerce Department declined to comment. China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to faxed questions for comment.<\/p>\n A KAUST spokeswoman said, \u201cWe will strictly comply with all U.S. export license terms and conditions for the full life cycle of Shaheen 3.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Schmidhuber said the Saudi government was ultimately aligned with the United States. Just as U.S. technology helped create Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil industry, it will play a critical role in A.I. development.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody wants to jeopardize that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s offer, which includes buying hundreds of annual subscriptions to his software in a contract worth roughly $800,000 a month.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want a serious deal, you need to be here,\u201d Mr. Ben said in an interview in Riyadh.<\/p>\n 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 in the kingdom to partake in the financial windfall.<\/p>\n That was evident at GAIA, an A.I. start-up accelerator, for which Saudi officials announced $1 billion in funding last month.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n About 50 start-ups \u2014 including from Taiwan, South Korea, Sweden, Poland and the United States \u2014 have gone through GAIA\u2019s program since it started last year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to attract talent, and we want them to stay,\u201d said Mohammed Almazyad, a program manager for GAIA. \u201cWe used to rely heavily on oil, and now we want to diversify.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One of the biggest enticements for A.I. start-ups is the chance to make the deep-pocketed Saudi government a customer. In one recent meeting, Abdullah Alswaha, a senior minister for communications and information technology, asked GAIA\u2019s start-ups to suggest what they could provide for the Saudi government, including for megacity projects like Neom<\/a>. Afterward, many of the companies received messages introducing them to state-owned businesses, Mr. Almazyad said.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say this process at the first stages is not organic,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t find this in Silicon Valley. Eventually the process will be organic.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Deciding to set up in Riyadh comes with challenges. There\u2019s the heat, reaching more than 110 degrees in the summer, as well as the adjustments of moving to a deeply religious Muslim kingdom. While Saudi Arabia has loosened some restrictions in recent years, freedom of speech remains limited and L.G.B.T.Q. people can face criminal penalties.<\/p>\n Mr. Almazyad, who hopes to eventually study in the United States, said cultural differences could make it hard to recruit international A.I. talent. But he cautioned against underestimating Saudi Arabia\u2019s resolve.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is just the beginning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nA Sci-Fi Script<\/h2>\n
Torn Between Superpowers<\/h2>\n
The Gold Rush<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n