The 2023 LEAP conference ends today in Riyadh. The 4-day technical conference hosted thousands of visitors and over 700 international speakers ranging from technology and artificial intelligence leaders to footballers and large investors.
Saudi Arabia has attracted $9 billion in investments from US giants Oracle and Microsoft, who are building cloud servers in the country. Securing these kinds of investments is part of the Kingdom’s bid to support entrepreneurship and tech startups and enhance its position as the largest digital economy in the MENA region. Digitalizing the economy is key for a country whose population remains very young and in dire need of opportunities.
The authoritarian Kingdom also seeks to enhance its own digital security and technological capacities, as evidenced through the event’s coordination by the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programing, and Drones.
It remains to be seen whether foreign investment will truly benefit small local entrepreneurs in the short term, who are at risk of being bypassed by larger technological firms both domestically and internationally. The Saudi economy is steadily growing, and a boost in the technological sector should help the country distance itself from its double-edged reliance on oil exports, benefitting the population in the long run.