SPA
- Lenovo to build plant in Riyadh
- $1.5bn deal with AI firm Groq
- Tencent reveals infrastructure project
Investment deals worth almost $15 billion have been announced on the first day of the Leap 25 tech event in Riyadh.
The Saudi communications ministry said that deals signed on day one of the four-day event, which ends on Wednesday, totalled $14.9 billion.
The deals included plans for a manufacturing plant in the Saudi capital by the Chinese computer-maker Lenovo and the Saudi Public Investment Fund-backed technology company Alat.
The plant will produce millions of Saudi-made laptops and desktops from next year and create 15,000 direct and 45,000 indirect jobs, Lenovo said.
Lenovo said it will also establish a regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia.
Alat became a strategic investor in Lenovo last year through a $2 billion investment via three-year, zero-coupon convertible bonds.
In another deal announced at Leap 25, Saudi Aramco Digital signed a $1.5 billion agreement with the US artificial intelligence company Groq to expand AI-powered cloud computing.
The two agreed in September to build the world’s largest AI inferencing data centre.
The Chinese tech giant Tencent Cloud also announced a $150 million infrastructure investment project to begin operating in Saudi Arabia this year.
Tencent, the world’s largest computer games company and the operator of WeChat, the world’s second largest instant messaging application after WhatsApp, plans to establish a data centre in the kingdom.
The Silicon Valley analytics company Databricks announced a $300 million investment to build a payment infrastructure in the kingdom. It had revealed its arrival in Saudi Arabia in December.
AI company SambaNova Systems unveiled $140 million in investments in Saudi infrastructure to enhance its AI and semiconductor capabilities.
Other announcements included plans by Google to launch a global AI hub, with similar AI commitments from the California-based company Qualcomm and the Chinese company Alibaba Cloud.
Leap 24 is sponsored by the Saudi government and is in its fourth year.