SAUDI ARABIA PERSPECTIVE

Saudi Arabia is not merely regulating AI — it has made it a civilisational project at the heart of Vision 2030. The royal cabinet's official designation of 2026 as the 'Year of Artificial Intelligence', announced by Arab News and Al Arabiya with the solemnity of a monarchical decree, places AI among national priorities alongside post-oil diversification and societal modernisation. The SDAIA (Saudi Data and AI Authority), established in 2019, orchestrates a national strategy built on six pillars — ambition, skills, policy, investment, innovation, and ecosystem — backed by substantial resources: 9.1 billion dollars in funding for Saudi AI enterprises in 2025 across 70 investment operations.

Saudi media framing represents a striking case of modernising nationalism applied to technology. Asharq Al-Awsat and Saudi Gazette celebrate international rankings — first globally in public sector AI adoption, 14th on the Global AI Index — as evidence that the monarchical model can outperform Western democracies bogged down in regulatory debate. The Shaheen III supercomputer and Hexagon data centre (480 megawatts, the world's largest government data facility) are presented as symbols of a kingdom that 'does not merely consume AI but produces it'. Notably absent is any criticism of the Trump administration's approach; Riyadh sees American pro-business policy as compatible with its own ambitions to become a regional technology hub.

What Saudi coverage carefully obscures is the nature of AI use by the kingdom's security apparatus. Mass surveillance, facial recognition during the Hajj, and behavioural prediction systems are never discussed within AI governance frameworks. The human rights angle — migrant workers exploited in AI infrastructure construction, suppression of online dissent — remains entirely unexamined. Regional rivalry with Iran, which structures most other aspects of Saudi foreign policy, does not feature in technology discussions, despite AI's direct security implications.