Saudi backs GAIA with $1b; and more Middle East AI News

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A big week for Saudi tech as $13b+ of new initiatives come out of #LEAP24 this week! Among these were the $1 billion backing for Riyadh’s GenAI accelerator, an initiative to upscale the Kingdom’s AI R&D capacity, the launch of Saudi Aramco’s industrial grade LLM, and a new Arabic LLM trained exclusively on Saudi data sets.

Later today, I’ll be hosting Middle East AI News LIVE - THURSDAY DEEP DIVE on LinkedIn at 12 noon KSA | 1pm UAE time | 9am GMT!

I’ll be talking to Andrew Forson, Head of Growth at The Hashgraph Association about the new DeepTech Venture Studio that it is creating in Riyadh, in partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment.

Click here to register for today’s THURSDAY DEEP DIVE!

As always, thanks for reading!

/Carrington

Middle East AI News – 07-Mar-24

Startups

Saudi backs GAIA with $1 billion

#Saudi #Accelerators - The government of Saudi Arabia plans to put $1 billion behind GAIA, its generative AI startup accelerator programme. H.E. Abdullah Alswaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, announced the new funding at the Kingdom’s annual IT mega-show LEAP. (Middle East AI News)

Beta Lab launches 2024 DeepTech program

#Saudi #deeptech - Beta Lab has opened its 2024 DeepTech Startups Program for registrations. The programme is run by Saudi’s Ministry of Investment, the FII Institute and KBW Ventures. The DeepTech Startups Program focuses on biotech, foodtech, and AI. Register here before April 15th. (LinkedIn)

$838 million of new tech funds announced at LEAP

#Saudi #funds - Seven new startup funds worth $838 million were announced at LEAP24 in Riyadh. All are Saudi or Middle East and North Africa focused (and one includes Pakistan and Turkey). Full list with backers, fund managers and fund values in my LinkedIn post. (LinkedIn)

stc launches Tali Ventures

#Saudi #funds - Saudi telecom stc has launched a new venture capital arm, called Tali Ventures. The fund will focus on early stage tech startups, in such fields as AI, fintech, cloud services, IoT, cybersecurity and other digital sectors. (Arab News)

Synexty secures $500k pre-seed via DeepMinds

#UAE #funding - Synexty has secured $500k pre-seed funding via a partnership deal with Abu Dhabi-based DeepMinds, to launch Vitalls.AI. The GenAI health companion, provides individuals with highly secured access to their complete health history anytime, anywhere. (Zawya)

SacredSpace AI raises $480K pre-seed via deal with DeepMinds

#UAE #funding - Wellness app SacredSpace.AI has raised $480k in pre-seed funding via a deal with deep tech venture studio DeepMinds. (Zawya)

LLMs

Aramco reveals worlds largest industrial LLM!

#Saudi #LLMs - Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national oil company, announced a 250 billion parameter large language model at LEAP24: the world's largest industrial LLM. Called METABRAIN, the AI model was trained on 7 trillion data tokens of public and internal Aramco data, based on about 90 years of data. (Middle East AI News)

First LLM trained exclusively on Saudi data sets

#Saudi #LLMs - Riyadh and Alkhobar-based technology company Watad has announced Mulhem, the first Saudi Arabia domain-specific LLM trained exclusively on Saudi data sets. The 7 billion parameter AI model was developed and trained on 90 billion Arabic and 90 billion English data tokens. (Middle East AI News)

ServiceNow to invest $500m in KSA, develop Arabic LLMs

#Saudi #investment - ServiceNow is to open regional headquarters in Riyadh, with a plan to invest $500 million. With partnerships with The Garage and the Saudi Digital Academy, ServiceNow will launch an Arabic platform later this month and will develop domain-specific Arabic LLMs to support customers. (Edge Middle East)

LEAP24

LEAP 2024 unveils almost $13 billion in tech investments

#Saudi #LEAP - LEAP, the global tech summit being held in Riyadh, announced a staggering $11.9 billion in investment on Day One of the event, followed by many more initiatives and investments during the show period. (WIRED)

Digital Transformation

ADNOC generates $500 million value with AI

#UAE #ROI - Abu Dhabi's ADNOC has generated $500 million in value during 2023 by deploying AI solutions. The value was generated from 30 industry-leading AI tools integrated across ADNOC's full value chain, from field operations to senior decision-making. (Emirates News Agency)

Ramp;D

NTDP announces $266m programme to support AI R&D

#Saudi #R&D - Saudi’s National Technology Development Program (NTDP), announced M AI Mission at LEAP, a new programme to build R&D infrastructure, create up to 100 AI-native ventures and build 20 to 25 AI foundation models, all within 5 years. (LinkedIn)

KACST and Animoca in R&D deal

#Saudi #blockchain - King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) signed an agreement with Animoca Brands during LEAP, to drive joint R&D for blockchain applications, games, AI and metaverse. (Lara-on-the-block)

Cloud

AWS to invest $5.3 billion in KSA

#Saudi #cloud - Amazon Web Services (AWS) is to create an infrastructure region in Saudi Arabia by 2026, with an investment exceeding $5.3 billion (approximately SR19.88 billion). The move will upgrade services provided to end-users directly in the Kingdom, whilst ensuring data residency preferences are met. (Saudi Gazette)

Naver, Aramco to develop sovereign AI, including Arabic

#Saudi #cloud - Korean internet giant Naver has signed a partnership with Aramco Digital, the technology subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, under which it will help the oil giant to develop a sovereign cloud, a super app and sovereign AI based on an Arabic large language model. (Korea Herald)

Semiconductor

Alat and KACST semiconductor initiative

#Saudi #semiconductor - Alat and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) partner to support Saudi Arabia’s semiconductor industry. Alat will work closely with KACST on talent development and R&D to further Saudi Arabia’s National Strategy for Semiconductors. (UAENews247)

Autonomous Vehicles

Jahez starts autonomous food delivery trial

#Saudi #logistics - Online food delivery group Jahez, and Saudi Arabia's Transport General Authority, announced an autonomous food vehicle delivery trial during LEAP 2024. The food delivery trial consists of 10 Kiwibot robotic vehicles and will take place under the TGAs regulatory sandbox. (LinkedIn)

AI Hackathon

LEAP24 holds 72 hour AI hackathon

#Saudi #hackathon - LEAP24 held AI Oasis this week, a 72 hour AI hackathon with $200,000 in prize money. Run by New Native's Lablab.ai and powered by National Technology Development Program (NTDP), the hackathon invited developers to create AI applications for sustainability, health & wellness, biotech, or cognitive cities challenges. (LinkedIn)

Education

First observability academy in MEA

#Saudi #training - Datadog, which provides observability services for cloud-scale systems, announced the first observability academy in the MEA region during LEAP, in partnership with the Saudi Digital Academy. (LinkedIn)

Security

Dubai police to use robot dogs for high-risk situations

#UAE #robotics - Dubai Police is studying the use of robotic dogs to help in high-risk missions. The police force is already equipping police dogs with cameras and sensors that can be monitored by their handlers and control centres. Robotic dogs could later be used for identifying drugs or hazardous substances, search and rescue, or to assist bomb disposal teams. (Khaleej Times)

Video of the Week

H.E. Abdullah Alswaha's keynote at LEAP24

Watch the video of H.E. Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi Arabia's Minister for Communications and Information Technology start #LEAP24 with a bang! He talks about progress in the technology sector, new ecosystem initiatives and investments, AI successes and partnerships.

Watch via Youtube (24 mins, Timer: 33:47-57:45)

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