LEAP conference shifts focus as infrastructure and data centres move Saudi Arabia’s bet from service digitisation to leading the AI economy
The LEAP conference in Riyadh is no longer just an annual platform for showcasing digital applications or reviewing traditional digitisation deals; it now serves as a practical benchmark for the shift in Saudi Arabia’s tech strategy toward building solid AI foundations. With the close of the 2026 edition, held under the theme “To New Worlds,” and the official designation of 2026 as the Kingdom’s Year of Artificial Intelligence, the focus has moved from digitising government services and early entrepreneurship initiatives to preparing the physical infrastructure and computing capabilities required to run and localise advanced models.
The evolution of announced investment figures clearly outlines this shift;In its inaugural edition in 2022, the event recorded announcements exceeding $6.4 billion in technology and startups, which jumped to $14.9 billion in the 2025 edition. But the more important implication lies not in the growth of investment volume itself, but in the nature of the assets to which this liquidity is directed, as training and operating models imposes massive energy, computing and data requirements, making data centres and digital infrastructure a decisive factor in global competition, no less important than building the software models themselves.
Saudi Arabia’s ranking of second worldwide in the 2026 Data Centre Market Attractiveness Index reflects this direct focus on physical foundations. Achieving genuine AI readiness is not achieved merely by importing external applications, but by providing local compute capacity able to handle heavy operational loads, securing energy and storage needs, and expanding global company partnerships within the local tech ecosystem, turning the Kingdom from a technology consumer into a hub that hosts and operates the infrastructure.
The equation is completed by human capital matching the computing capabilities;The AI economy requires talent capable of developing, testing and deploying solutions rather than merely using them as ready-made interfaces. Specialized educational and training entities, such as the Tuwaij Academy and related national initiatives, are building technical qualification pathways that focus on practical skills needed for the next phase and linking national talent to the new value chains in the local market.
This shift means that organisations and tech teams across the Gulf and Arab region are undergoing a qualitative change in planning and investment priorities; the next phase will not focus on purchasing ready-made cloud platform subscriptions, but on engineering models and integrating them locally atop a low-latency, high-capacity regional infrastructure. Technology leaders and development teams must redirect internal skills toward managing massive data flows, controlling inference efficiency, and leveraging local computing power to reduce reliance on external infrastructure and lower long-term operational costs.