The Leap 23 International Technical Conference, held in Riyadh, resulted in investments of more than $9 billion in the field of technology and digital technology.
According to Arabia Net, the Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Eng. Abdullah bin Amer Al-Sawaha, confirmed that the investments and launches included Microsoft's investment of $2.1 billion in a global ultra-wide cloud in the Kingdom, and Oracle's investment of $1.5 billion to expand its business by establishing a number of cloud regions. new in the kingdom.
The investments also included Huawei’s investment in cloud offerings in the Kingdom at a value of $400 million, and the establishment of a cloud area for Zoom services in the Kingdom in partnership with Aramco with investments amounting to $434 million, in addition to global and local investments of $4.5 billion in various fields.
Al-Sawaha stressed that these huge investment packages came with the support of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, and his empowerment of the technology sector, which is one of the promising sectors that are witnessing unprecedented support in the belief in the importance of benefiting from open horizons and qualitative fields in various forms of digital economy, and the Internet. Objects, biological and health technologies, quantitative science, space and satellites, financial technologies, and open source.
The minister explained that the Kingdom’s organization of the Leap 23 conference is also an affirmation of the great support that the digital and technical transformation journey enjoys from the Crown Prince, and his keenness to keep abreast of the rapid developments and changes in the world in order to achieve the goals of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 in promising sectors and future technologies.
In his opening speech, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology stated that the LEAP 23 conference has today become an annual gathering that brings together the most important international technology experts, with more than 250,000 interested and technical attendees expected from all over the world, highlighting the impact of the first edition of LEAP last year, which Create global technology movement.
He stressed that this year this movement continues, which is reflected in the Kingdom's continued leadership as the largest technical market in the region with more than 42 billion dollars as an ideal platform to reach the market in the Middle East and North Africa, in addition to continuing to lead in the human technical force with more than 340 thousand manpower, as we are witnessing Exceptional progress in female participation in the ICT sector, now at 32.5%, higher than the EU average and Silicon Valley, which is the biggest success story in women's empowerment.
Al-Sawaha expressed his aspirations to enhance the outputs of the Leap 23 conference in diversifying the economy, localizing technology and advanced industries, pointing out that the conference has become one of the most important annual global technical events that innovators and those interested in technology await to meet with decision-makers and entrepreneurs and venture capital funds to open new horizons in the fields of technology. New investment and the launch of qualitative partnerships expected during the conference.
The conference announcements on its first day included; Meta announces the opening of the first Metaverse academy in the Middle East and North Africa, headquartered in Saudi Arabia, in addition to the launch of WEO Technology and Camel lab, the “Hektar” application, a multi-content social media platform, and the launch of MENA Communication and stc, the “Beem” application, the messaging application Instant, high-quality video and audio calls, and business features.
