Q&ANEOM CEO confident of building unrivaled futuristic city in desert

• Published date: 28 February 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

The $500 billion NEOM development is a highly ambitious and innovative mega project of Saudi Arabia, developing a series of smart cities along the Red Sea in the northwestern region of the country. It is attracting attention from around the world for its scale and innovation.

"A new development built from the ground up at the global crossroads, NEOM incorporates the world's most advanced technologies to redefine how we live, work and play," NEOM CEO Nadhmi Al-Nasr told The Korea Times.

NEOM is a crucial component of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, as it is a tangible embodiment of the ambitious plan to diversify the country's economy and improve the quality of life. Al-Nasr emphasized that NEOM's role in Vision 2030 is to serve as a catalyst for finding innovative solutions to these global problems.

"As a region, NEOM is being developed to find solutions to the huge challenges facing humanity caused by issues that include climate change, unchecked urban development and environmental degradation. We need new technologies that address these challenges, and we need them scaled quickly. This is the basis of Vision 2030 and NEOM's role within it," he said.

The CEO said NEOM's assets are being built to be predictive and proactive, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to "continuously foresee ways to make life easier."

NEOM aims to make use of a significantly higher amount of data compared to other smart cities. Specifically, it is estimated that 90 percent of available data will be utilized to enhance its infrastructure capabilities, whereas existing smart cities use only about 1 percent of available data.

"NEOM will become a blueprint for a sustainable community that is not disruptive to its surrounding nature, a community that enhances the lives of its residents, promotes a circular economy and leaves the environment better than how we found it," he said.

According to Al-Nasr, NEOM currently employs more than 2,000 individuals from over 80 countries who work in design, implementation and construction of the 26,500 square kilometer project.

"A vision of this scale relies on our ability to invite partners and recruit passionate and disruptive professionals who share our values, drive and ambition," he said, emphasizing the importance of collaborating with like-minded partners and welcoming Korean companies and investors to the endeavor.

Korea has a history of involvement in Saudi Arabia's development initiatives, dating back to the 1970s. It is ready to elevate its relationship with the Middle Eastern nation by playing a key role in the NEOM project.

Al-Nasr said that the...