Saudi Arabia's flagship technology conference LEAP opened its first international edition in Hong Kong on Wednesday, marking the event's expansion beyond Riyadh five years after its launch. Communications and IT Minister Abdullah Al-Swaha framed the Kingdom as a bridge between East and West in the AI era, noting the East represents a $34 trillion economy, 82% of the world's AI patents, and 90% of advanced chip manufacturing.
The Saudi numbers Al-Swaha presented tell the infrastructure story: the Kingdom's digital economy has grown 75% over eight years to $139 billion, with the non-oil digital economy now contributing 16% of GDP. Operational data center capacity stands at 467 megawatts — 47% of MENA's total — with 6.9 gigawatts planned by 2034 (3GW by 2030), backed by 12.8GW of available power capacity today.
Al-Swaha said major Eastern tech companies including ByteDance, Lenovo, and Tencent have already begun investing and expanding in Saudi Arabia, and highlighted that women's participation in the Kingdom's ICT workforce has risen from 7% to 35%. The through-line: Riyadh is positioning compute, customers, and capital as its three pillars for the AI age.