China, US deals and robots headline Saudi Arabia’s LEAP tech event

China, US deals and robots headline Saudi Arabia’s LEAP tech event

Saudi Arabia’s second LEAP technology event on Tuesday saw a host of landmark partnerships and billion-dollar investments take place with major Chinese and US companies, in line with the last phase of the country’s national strategy for digital transformation. 

On the first day of the event on Monday, the country announced $9 billion of investments in global companies, including Oracle, China's Huawei and Meta, to work with the kingdom, and at least $2.43 billion more on day two were injected into local technology businesses and more to stimulate market growth. 

Among some of the major deals was the announcement on Tuesday of a future Saudi-Chinese social media application named Hectar, which claimed to be able to compete with other “important social media applications.” 

The app is being positioned as a high-security all-in-one application that, in addition to sharing videos and photos, will provide content creators with gifts, support and opportunities to monetize from followers. 

A number of significant developments in the space of data and cybersecurity infrastructure are also expected to come amid the four-day event ending on Thursday. 

Saudi technology company EzdiTek announced that it would build four large-scale data centers in the kingdom’s major cities. 

Saudi Aramco announced a strategic partnership with Zoom, looking to build