Unnamed signings at LEAP raise questions about why regional firms file undefined memoranda of understanding as zero value

Saudi Aramco and its tech arm Aramco Digital announced during the LEAP conference in Riyadh that they had signed a package of agreements and memoranda of understanding covering five vital tracks: cybersecurity, industrial artificial intelligence, innovation, localisation of sensitive technologies, and building national industrial capabilities. What is striking about this announcement is not the areas themselves but the lack of any disclosure about the technology partners, the nature of the legal instruments signed, or their estimated financial value; this is an intentional choice in corporate communication that reflects an early exploratory phase and warrants careful reading by suppliers and entrepreneurs in the region.

Aramco’s recent history shows its full capacity for transparency when it decides to turn a pathway into an executive commitment; it announced, a few weeks before the conference, deals with French companies that could total more than $3.7 billion and that include industrial AI, digital twins and supply chains, and it explicitly described its earlier memorandum with Microsoft as non-binding. A regional comparison highlights the difference, as Abu Dhabi, through AIQ, disclosed a three-year contract with ADNOC worth $340 million to deploy the Energy AI agent system in upstream chains, specifying the work scope precisely in subsurface surveying, geological modelling and operations monitoring across more than 28 producing fields, and explicitly naming the approved supply chain represented by G42, Microsoft, SLB and Praxis, based on operational data spanning seventy years.

The essential difference between an announcement that reveals a binding purchase decision and one that expresses a general direction is the gap at which start-up plans in the region collapse.

The heaviest and most influential phrase in Aramco’s announcement is “localisation of sensitive technologies,” a point that ties directly to the Kingdom’s local value-added targets. In the realm of industrial AI software, localisation is a far more complex dilemma than supplying steel or pipes; the easy and most common model is for a local entity to set up a business that resells and integrates foreign platforms, which achieves digital localisation ratios but leaves technical dependence unchanged. The genuine model that reshapes the industrial structure is for the local enterprise to own the operational data, the trained models and the rights to sell them to other parties independently.

This shift imposes a new reality on engineering firms and solution developers in the Gulf, Egypt and the Levant: do not build hiring or capital-expansion plans based on generic memoranda of understanding that lack a defined scope, because a letter of intent does not bind anyone to a purchase, includes no termination clauses and does not become cash flow in the accounts. Note that pricing generic memoranda at near-zero value until a published scope document is obtained is the safest option, and follow up with binding contracts that specify implementation partners, as only they create real subcontracting opportunities, allowing discussions with the industrial buyer to move from the intent stage to direct supply.