In the age of AI, Saudi Arabia preps for a state-of-the-art, high-tech future

How can artificial intelligence help achieve Saudi Vision 2030?

Data and artificial intelligence contribute to achieving the Kingdom's Vision 2030.  About 66 direct and indirect goals of the vision, out of 96 goals, relate to it. The SDAIA's role is to lead the national trend in this field, elevate the Kingdom to be a leader within data-driven and artificial intelligence economies and achieve the sustainable development goals of Saudi Vision 2030 in their economic, social, and environmental dimensions.

These efforts include enabling the digital transformation of government and private sector entities and supporting the quality of life programme, whereby the Centre of Excellence for Smart Cities was established and includes The National Platform for Smart Cities (Sawaher), whose live operational indicators track security and other vital sectors in Riyadh.

It supports operators in monitoring the level of services, raising the quality of life, and providing strategic indicators, advanced analysis, and simulation models that support the creation of future plans and directions in cities.

How are Arabs dealing with artificial Intelligence today and tomorrow? What's your vision?

The Kingdom has been interested in the issue of digital transformation since the launch of the Saudi Vision in 2016.

The vision's long-term goals have evolved to include artificial intelligence technologies, as Prince Mohammed bin Salman expressed in his speech to G20 leaders during the 2019 summit in Japan.

He said: "We're living in a time of unprecedented scientific and technological innovation and unlimited growth prospects; these new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, if used optimally, can bring huge benefits to the world."

"At the same time, these innovations may create new challenges, such as changing work patterns and the skills needed to adapt to the future of work, as well as increased cybersecurity and information flow risk; this requires us to address these challenges as soon as possible to prevent them from becoming economic and social crises."

At the SDAIA, we noticed unprecedented international and Arab interest in artificial intelligence technologies during the two Global Artificial Intelligence Summits held in Riyadh under the theme Artificial Intelligence for the Good of Humanity.

The first was held under the conditions and challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. It was virtual and involved decision-makers, experts, and specialists from various government and private sectors inside and outside the Kingdom.

The second summit in 2022 was attended by more than 20,000 visitors and more than 50,000 virtual viewers from more than 100 countries. This is in addition to more than 200 global speakers, most notably from East Asia, Europe, and the United States. They represented artificial intelligence leaders, policy-makers, scientists, and heads of the world's leading technology companies.

Read more: How the Arab world is adopting a proactive approach to AI

Has the authority developed artificial intelligence technology solutions to address the challenges of vital sectors in the Kingdom, such as the energy sector?

The SDAIA signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Energy in January 2021 to strengthen efforts to raise the Kingdom's ranking in leading global indicators.

It launched the Artificial Intelligence Centre for Energy to achieve the objectives of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 that the Ministry of Energy and the SDAIA jointly own; enhance the competitiveness of the energy sector, especially in the field of joint innovation in artificial intelligence related to this sector; and build competent national capacities and competencies.

Energy is one of the priority sectors for the localisation of technology. The Ministry of Energy and the SDAIA also signed an agreement between their joint centre – the Artificial Intelligence Centre for Energy – with the global company Siemens Advanta.

The agreement is meant to develop intelligence solutions for the sector to increase energy efficiency and promote the integration of renewable energy sources.

The SDAIA has worked on a system that expects large solar and wind energy production by relying on artificial intelligence techniques from solar plants and working on deep learning algorithms for forecasts to manage energy wasted during electrical transmission operations.

What are some of the SDAIA 's research and development initiatives in AI?

The SDAIA is focused on human health, environmental sustainability and basic needs, leadership in energy and industry, and the economies of the future, which includes the field of artificial intelligence.

To this end, it has worked on several projects and initiatives that support innovation and creativity, focusing on developing human capital, especially the younger generations.  

We want to make the younger generation real partners in building the Kingdom's knowledge economy and raise their skills and scientific thinking in line with the vast technical developments and innovations that are starting to enter the labour market.

The SDAIA supported research and put forth patents in artificial intelligence, as in educational institutions, to develop the digital capabilities of students and university students and spread the culture of artificial intelligence.

One of its initiatives is to set up Sawtak — an artificial intelligence system that enables speech to be converted into text through voice recognition in standard Arabic and local dialects.

It can be used to automate meeting recording, develop chatbots, and build interactive voice systems. The SDAIA published informative reports and studies in Arabic to educate the community about data and artificial intelligence and their various applications, and to enrich the Arabic content with qualitative releases.

Can Saudi youth, and youth in general, be entrepreneurs in developing artificial intelligence projects in the Kingdom? How does the SDAIA facilitate this?

The SDAIA has always been interested in supporting young Saudis in various fields, raising their knowledge of data and artificial intelligence, and investing these technologies in the labour market.

In March 2022 – in cooperation with the Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority (SMEA) and Elm – it launched the Baqah Rowad initiative, which aims to support entrepreneurs in various sectors, companies, and emerging institutions in the Kingdom, by facilitating the process of verifying the data of individual customers through electronic linking with the databases of the National Information Centre.

This is meant to develop the Kingdom's capabilities and contribute to building a data- and artificial intelligence-based economy by unleashing the potential value of data as a national resource. The initiative is meant to support SMEs by enhancing the use of an emerging sector entity's identity and achieving the highest levels of security and reliability.

The SDAIA launched its Elevate programme in May 2023 to prepare women for jobs in new markets in cooperation with Google Cloud.

It's the first of its kind in the world for training purposes; in its first phase, it trained 1,000 women from 28 countries on data and artificial intelligence to enable the world's women to take on new careers in this field.

We plan to train more than 25,000 women in the next five years.

What about Saudi legislation and regulations in the field of artificial intelligence?

Many major Saudi projects rely on modern technology, including artificial intelligence.

Some examples include giant development projects including Neom, The Line, and the Red Sea. The Kingdom has upped its efforts to adopt policies that support these kinds of projects. The interest in artificial intelligence was reflected in the SDAIA's establishment in 2019 to officially take over the management of this field in the Kingdom.

The SDAIA is the national reference point for all matters related to big data and artificial intelligence, in terms of organisation and development and ensuring Saudi Arabia's positioning as a leader among economies based on information, data and artificial intelligence.

It is backed from the highest level. The SDAIA's chairman is Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. In 2020, the board called on all dreamers, innovators, investors, and opinion leaders to join the Kingdom in turning ambition into reality by building a pioneering model to unlock the value of data and artificial intelligence in favour of knowledge economies and present and future generations.

The Kingdom was one of the first countries to adopt the recommendations on the ethics of artificial intelligence adopted by UNESCO in November 2021 with the participation of 193 countries.

The first Cabinet decision, issued in March 2022, approved, in principle, establishing a regional centre for artificial intelligence research to be a category II centre under the auspices of UNESCO. In September 2022, the Kingdom launched its principles of ethics of artificial intelligence during the second edition of the Artificial Intelligence Global Summit.

Last July, the Cabinet approved the establishment of the International Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Ethics in Riyadh. The SDAIA has worked to establish and build the legislative and regulatory environment for all data controls and standards and enhance their reliability and quality.

The Kingdom ranked first in the world in the Government Strategy Index for Artificial Intelligence — one of the indicators of the global classification of artificial intelligence issued by Tortoise Intelligences.

The index ranks more than 60 countries worldwide, and the global classification of artificial intelligence measures more than 100 criteria within seven indicators: Government strategy, research, development, competencies, infrastructure, operational environment, and trade.

Can you tell us about AI workshops and training courses organised by the authorities in the Kingdom?

The SDAIA offers young Saudi workers in both the public and private sectors access to four qualitative programmes: A national capacity-building programme for data science specialists, a programme for data awareness and artificial intelligence, one for SDAIA clients, and a cooperative training programme.

These offer the chance to learn new skills and raise awareness of data science and artificial intelligence technologies and how they can improve countries and economies.

The SDAIA organised the Artificial Intelligence Arthon — an art competition that brings artists and artificial intelligence experts together to produce innovative works of art based on artificial intelligence techniques. The Smarthon Challenge looked for innovative solutions to improve the visual arts scene in the Kingdom's cities.

There was also the National Olympiad for Artificial Intelligence to put forth students to represent the Kingdom in regional and international competitions specialising in programming and artificial intelligence.

The SDAIA also organised the Future Intelligence Programmers training for middle and high school students and their teachers. In cooperation with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), the SDAIA established a centre of excellence in data science and artificial intelligence.

Have you undertaken specific projects in vital areas such as health, global warming, climate change, and environmental threats?

The SDAIA has partnered with the Ministry of Health to establish the Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence in the Health Sector. It aims to develop a national strategy for data and artificial intelligence in health and help build the basics of health data, standards, and artificial intelligence capabilities.

This partnership produced successful scientific experiments, including a Diabetic retinopathy screening project in cooperation with King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital, which is a system to detect diabetic retinopathy in its early stages by identifying the injury through an analysis of the image of the eye bottom of diabetic patients inside the Kingdom.

Partnerships also included an artificial intelligence laboratory for medical images, equipped with the latest technologies, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health. The laboratory contributed to developing algorithms for early breast cancer detection, heart calcification, and other breakthroughs.

In cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, the SDAIA launched the first specialised centre in the Kingdom and the Middle East for sustainability solutions and applications. It's called the Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Environment, Water and Agriculture.

There's also the Smart Planet Programme, meant to find innovative solutions to benefit from the potential of untapped, sustainable resources.

The SDAIA also worked on Sidra — an artificial intelligence system to predict the optimal area for agriculture and determine the best locations for seeding, by analysing multispectral satellite imagery data, extracting land-terrain data, soil fertility data such as salinity and moisture, and determining suitability for agriculture.