LEAP 2026: $15 billion in deals map an integrated national computing ecosystem

The fifth edition of the annual LEAP 2026 technology conference in Riyadh, which concluded in early September, revealed the scale of transformation in the technology and artificial intelligence sector after announcing deals exceeding $15 billion over four days. The significance of these figures went beyond attracting capital, reflecting a direction toward building an integrated domestic technology ecosystem, ranging from AI model development and hardware design to billions invested in cloud infrastructure, autonomous truck plans and expanded local manufacturing, rather than relying solely on imported products and ready-made software.

Technology plans spanning five to ten years have become obsolete amid the extraordinary acceleration.Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Al-Sawaha affirmed this at the conference opening, noting that the tech sector grew under Vision 2030 from under $80 billion in 2016 to $139.2 billion, with jobs rising from 150,000 to 450,000. The event attracted 1,323 speakers and 1,397 investors representing 1,027 companies that collectively manage assets worth $18.3 trillion, in addition to more than 1,500 exhibiting entities, including 750 global firms, and 1,294 companies participating in the exhibition and the startup program.

At the heart of these announcements, Humane, founded by the Public Investment Fund in May of last year, led a striking technical presence; on day one it unveiled the Humane M3 model, an open-weight Arabic language model trained on more than one trillion Arabic characters, alongside the Humane Voice platform for voice conversations supporting multiple Arabic dialects including Saudi, Maghrebi, Egyptian and Levantine. Subsequent announcements included a partnership with U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm and the showcase of the Horizon Ultra AI personal computer designed in Saudi Arabia, while Qualcomm disclosed plans to open an engineering office in Riyadh. Humane CEO Tarek Amin confirmed that the production-grade computing infrastructure developed with AMD and Cisco had begun operating, targeting the rollout of an additional 250 megawatts by 2027 and reaching a full gigawatt by 2030, noting that leadership had recognised early that AI is a foundational technology rather than a mere add-on.

Humane’s initiatives also moved toward field AI through an alliance with Applied Intuition to deploy thousands of autonomous trucks on major logistics corridors by 2030, as a first step toward establishing a self-driving transport network that will later extend to ports, agriculture and construction. This coincided with a race to secure data centers; the company signed an agreement with Amazon Web Services to provide up to 50 megawatts for the first AI region by 2028, aligning with Amazon’s preparation to launch its cloud region backed by an investment exceeding $5.3 billion in December next year. Al-Muammar Information Systems announced a partnership to raise its data-center capacity to 192 megawatts, while Microsoft readied a cloud region in the Eastern Province for launch in November, which Microsoft Arabia head Ayman Al-Ghamdi estimated would contribute $44 billion to the economy and create 100,000 jobs, 33 % of them in AI and computing. Those projects integrate with the Hexagon complex of the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) in Riyadh, expected to have 480 megawatts as the world’s largest governmental data center, as well as the joint Lenovo-Alat facility for producing computers and servers on 200,000 square metres, which unveiled the first locally manufactured laptop.

These capabilities are no longer confined to servers, but have entered daily operational procedures; the General Directorate of Passports showcased a contact-less electronic gate that relies on hand passing instead of paper checks, while the head of the National Information Center at SDAIA, Issam Al-Waqit, disclosed that the Tawakkalna app now processes over four billion transactions per month over the past six months. Employment also expanded to a digital tourism platform under the Ministry of Tourism, and to Control’s technologies for monitoring, shipment tracking and crowd-management simulation, in addition to algorithmic trading accounting for roughly a quarter of stock-market turnover, and sports clubs and facilities increasingly relying on algorithms to attract players, manage energy and ensure stadium safety.

This investment surge is reshaping technology-building priorities across the entire region.Moving to open-weight models such as Humane M3 and providing platforms that understand Levantine, Egyptian and Maghrebi dialects enables tech firms and startups in the Gulf, Cairo and Amman to bypass the financial constraints of closed-source inference APIs that charge in hard currencies. Localising massive data centers also reduces latency and strengthens the security of banking and governmental systems within regional borders, compelling engineering talent to shift their skills from merely assembling user interfaces to managing heavyweight computing architectures and adapting algorithmic models within actual operational workflows.

The proceedings of LEAP 2026 reveal that the bet on AI has shifted from consuming models and importing cloud platforms to building digital sovereignty on hardware components; owning power plants, device factories and autonomous transport chains constitutes the real foundation that will determine regional organisations’ ability to compete and protect their critical operations in the coming years.