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Businesses The Almighty Buck

Saudi Arabia Is Trying To Pivot From Big Oil To Big Tech (gizmodo.com) 55

Posted by BeauHD from the data-is-the-new-oil dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The country of Saudi Arabia has scrounged up several billion dollars in investments from major tech companies, which are interested in building cloud computing centers in the region. According to Reuters, the Saudi Minister of Communication and Information Technology Abdullah Alswaha discussed the investments at LEAP, an international technology conference that began today in Riyadh, the country's capital city. Players like Microsoft and Oracle are investing billions of dollars into the country, with Microsoft forking over $2.1 billion while Oracle invests $1.5 billion. Huawei, a Chinese tech company, is also investing a reported $400 million.

"The investments... will enhance the kingdom of Saudi Arabia's position as the largest digital market in the Middle East and North Africa," Alswaha said at LEAP, as quoted by Reuters. While the timeline of these investments is not clear, Oracle told Reuters that its funds will be distributed over several years. Alswaha is tempting these companies with government contracts, and while details are scant, it's likely that Saudi Arabia is giving them prime real estate for a low cost to build their cloud computing centers in Riyadh. "The investments are a part of Saudi Arabia's planned pivot away from oil and toward tech, which the country is calling Vision 2030," adds Gizmodo. "That pivot is already underway as Tonomus, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's own architecture, engineering, and sustainability amalgamation called NEOM made a $1 billion investment in artificial intelligence and the metaverse."

One of the three areas of Neom that has been officially announced and underway is The Line, "a linear city with Utopian vistas straight out of a Hollywood movie," reported CNBC last October. "Composed of two parallel skyscrapers that cut right through the desert for 170 kilometers from the coast to the mountains, The Line will be 200 meters wide and soar to a height of 500 meters (higher than most of the world's towers) -- and for an added surreal touch, will be encased on all sides with gigantic mirrors."
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Saudi Arabia Is Trying To Pivot From Big Oil To Big Tech More

Saudi Arabia Is Trying To Pivot From Big Oil To Big Tech

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  • Not to mention taking our water (Score:5, Interesting)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @07:09PM (#63273955)

    Since 2014, the Saudi company Fondomonte has been pumping unlimited amounts of groundwater in the desert west of Phoenix to harvest thousands of acres of alfalfa crops. The alfalfa is then shipped back to Saudi Arabia to feed their cattle.

    But a recent investigation from Arizona Central has revealed that Fondomonte, a subsidiary of Riyadh-based Almarai, has the bargain of a lifetime: for only $25 per acre annually, it can pump as much water as it wants. Nearby farmers pay six times more than the Saudi company.

    At a time when the country is killing U.S. citizens without any consequences, it's also bleeding this country dry [responsibl...ecraft.org] (of water).

    For another taste of the destruction [cnn.com]:

    Workers with the water district in Wenden, Arizona, saw something remarkable last year as they slowly lowered a camera into the drought-stricken town’s well: The water was moving.

    But the aquifer which sits below the small desert town in the southwestern part of the state is not a river; it’s a massive, underground reservoir which stores water built up over thousands of years. And that water is almost always still.

    Gary Saiter, a longtime resident and head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, said the water was moving because it was being pumped rapidly out of the ground by a neighboring well belonging to Al Dahra, a United Arab Emirates-based company farming alfalfa in the Southwest.

    So remember folks, when people in this country can't get a drink of water due to climate change, they also have to contend with a foreign country sucking everything dry. And we are paying them to do so.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Shag ( 3737 )

      The UAE and Saudi Arabia are the same country in much the same way that the US and Mexico are.

      (And the UAE has been trying to pivot to clean energy for a decade or so now; the Saudis were previously more about ideas like capturing CO2 and injecting it into their oilfields to either store it or make oil extraction more efficient.)

    • Re:Not to mention taking our water (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @09:46PM (#63274219)

      Key takeaway from the story;

      Residents and local officials say lax groundwater laws give agriculture the upper hand, allowing farms to pump unlimited water as long as they own or lease the property to drill wells into. In around 80% of the state, Arizona has no laws overseeing how much water corporate megafarms are using, nor is there any way for the state to track it.

      It'd be nice to see the new governor take a stand on this as I can't imagine the Republican legislature is going to stop it. Although La Paz county voted for Kari Lake by 70% so what do they expect here, this is literally what they are voting for, this is lierally de-regulation at work. Government is out of your business folks.

    • And Arizona wants to overhaul longstanding water rights just so they can continue to ship American water overseas.

      Fuck Arizona and their inability to manage their own water supply.

  • Yeah, no (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cotu ( 412872 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @07:15PM (#63273973)

    Just what I'd like to do moving from a free country to someplace that is extremely misogynistic, homophobic and altogether backward. i can just see the bay area emptying out at the opportunity

  • Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @07:21PM (#63273991) Homepage

    You can't have a vibrant tech sector without having a free society. You need the free exchange of ideas and low levels of corruption, neither of which describes Saudi Arabia.

    And really, "cloud computing centers"? Who in their right mind would build a data center in Saudi Arabia? I'd hate to see the air conditioning bill...

    • You said it so much nicer than I could have.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shag ( 3737 )

      What bill? You'll just need a huge solar farm to power it all...

      Other than that, yes, I agree, having been to Riyadh, it's one of the last places on earth I'd stick a datacenter. Somewhere coastal like Dammam or Dhahran might be ever so slightly better.

      • What bill? You'll just need a huge solar farm to power it all...

        That reminds me, recently solar panels have been for sale for free dollars.

    • The free exchange of ideas and low levels of corruption, neither of which describes Silicon Valley, either.

      The same people who normalized corporate censorship and help the tyrants in Beijing build the Great Firewall, are not incompatible with the culture where there is still state executions of witches.

      A free society is not a prerequisite for learning how to code.

      • SV is a stripper that pretends to like you (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @08:32PM (#63274113)

        The free exchange of ideas and low levels of corruption, neither of which describes Silicon Valley, either.

        The same people who normalized corporate censorship and help the tyrants in Beijing build the Great Firewall, are not incompatible with the culture where there is still state executions of witches.

        Silicon Valley is as "woke" in the same sense that that stripper you paid for a lapdance "has a crush on you." The tech sector is sociopathic and does what it takes to advance their business needs, nothing more. If more 2nd-amendment-loving Republicans could code, they'd be courting you instead and waving the American Flag with a "Don't Tread on Me" yellow flag and putting icons of rifles all over their website.

        They support liberal causes because people who can actually code tend to either be liberal or despise modern conservatives. The leaders don't care about red vs blue...just green....and appearing progressive helps them court younger urban professionals. They want to create a welcoming environment for all races and sexual orientations and gender identities because they can't find enough talented engineers otherwise.

        Simply put, they think being progressive is better for business. They don't actually believe it and they secretly lobby for all sorts of tax breaks. They don't want Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in power. They don't want true progressivism...they just want to attract talent to meet their deliverables and think being perceived as progressive is helpful to their bottom line. Trust me, your VP suite has no political agenda. They're a bunch of sociopaths you never want to be trapped in a room with.

        • Although I'm in Los Angeles, I am a software developer at one such company, I can honestly say that this really isn't the case. Or at least, it's not my experience. While I haven't done any kind of survey, I'm aware of all of one other developer who actually wants to be in either this area or silicon valley. Everybody else, when offered the choice, would rather NOT be. Me included. The choice will be available soon enough in my case, and everybody has their own reasons, though mine are centered more around

        • They don't want true progressivism...they just want to attract talent to meet their deliverables and think being perceived as progressive is helpful to their bottom line. Trust me, your VP suite has no political agenda. They're a bunch of sociopaths you never want to be trapped in a room with.

          I get what you're saying, but to me this is a positive attribute of the US social/political framework. I'd much rather have the sociopaths 'pretending' to be progressive because they feel compelled to by the will of the people, than any other alternative I can think of - such as them just destroying democracy and ruling everyone as despots.

          Of course it would be better if we could just keep sociopaths out of positions of power, but, well I just don't think history shows we have much chance of achieving that.

          • They don't want true progressivism...they just want to attract talent to meet their deliverables and think being perceived as progressive is helpful to their bottom line. Trust me, your VP suite has no political agenda. They're a bunch of sociopaths you never want to be trapped in a room with.

            I get what you're saying, but to me this is a positive attribute of the US social/political framework. I'd much rather have the sociopaths 'pretending' to be progressive because they feel compelled to by the will of the people, than any other alternative I can think of - such as them just destroying democracy and ruling everyone as despots.

            Of course it would be better if we could just keep sociopaths out of positions of power, but, well I just don't think history shows we have much chance of achieving that.

            I agree. This isn't bad...but the argument that work Silicon Valley is out to steal the freedom of Republican patriots is just bullshit. There's no such thing as woke tyrants. It's just another variety of "Satanic Panic" we saw in the USA in the 80s...a bunch of hype designed to scare people that's purely bullshit and relies on some really heavy-duty imagination. The "woke mob" is just a bunch of idiots on twitter no one really listens to beyond maybe a occasionally a handful of marketing departments.

            • There's no such thing as woke tyrants.

              Yeah sure. The NSA isn't spying on you, Google isn't censoring, Facebook isn't manipulating their algorithms, corporate MSM media is honest trustworthy journalism, and woke leftists would never go out of their way to punish someone just for having an opinion they didn't like. Oh and the "diversity and inclusion" directors at all the SV firms aren't actually political commissars.

              It's too bad we can't run generators on leftist gaslighting because that would solve civilizations energy needs for the next ten th

    • You can't have a vibrant tech sector without having a free society. You need the free exchange of ideas and low levels of corruption, neither of which describes Saudi Arabia.

      And really, "cloud computing centers"? Who in their right mind would build a data center in Saudi Arabia? I'd hate to see the air conditioning bill...

      Hmm, that describes neither India nor China. While America and Germany and Japan have far superior tech sectors, IMO, you can't say India and China are substantial figures in the tech world. I think the free exchange of ideas and low levels of corruption help any society, but I am not sure how essential they are to a thriving tech sector.

      I can't think of a single Indian-based software company...I'm sure they're out there, I just don't know of any...but everyone who is anyone has a substantial investme

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by iamacat ( 583406 )

        India is pretty free, corruption / regulatory bureaucracy is a different matter, but these are also issues in Europe. Overall, not a bad deal given lower labor costs. They have gigantic consulting companies like Tata. What is true is that they have not started any big tech products that are household names worldwide. US is still special with a combination of low red tape and abundance of top talent that would love to come and work here. But Saudi Arabia is not in the same league as India. Even in China, onl

        • But Saudi Arabia is not in the same league as India. Even in China, only a limited number of topics are taboo, and not for example a woman working in office with male colleagues.

          Saudi Arabia has models for dealing with foreign contractors already. I've been told that they are very respectful, yet distant, towards foreigners working there...at least from what I've heard from engineers deployed there. I'll wager foreigners would be held to different standards and looked at as perpetual outsiders, especially in the beginning. However, IMHO, this is how you win over backwards people. If you show the people of Saudi Arabia that getting out of the past is profitable and lucrative, yo

      • Not to mention Germany under Hitler developed technology that got us to the moon and back.
    • Not to mention putting it in a place where probably half or more of tech workers (women, LGBT, etc) are not allowed to work, and a lot of web content is considered blasphemous, along with a government that is evil.

      • Saudis allow women to do most jobs. The exceptions tend to be ones that put them in social situations, like working outside in construction. 22% of Saudi women are employed.

        And LGBT folks are not a significant portion of the population outside of college campuses. Not anywhere near 50% surely.

        • And LGBT folks are not a significant portion of the population outside of college campuses.

          LGBT folks are not visibly a significant portion of the population outside of college campuses.

          FTFY.

    • To have a vibrant tech sector, you need to have all the backstabbing, betrayal, and exploitation of any healthy Monarchy. I think this might be the best fit, really...
    • Saudi gets most of its water from desalination and burns tonnes of crude to boil the water . Just colocate with Data centers and use the waste heat to boil the water for desaliantion and you have saved a ton of carbon.

    • Wishful thinking.
      Russia had a huge software sector without being a free society. Now many of their developers are relocating to other countries with unfree societies, like UAE or Kazakhstan.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Russia had a huge software sector without being a free society. Now many of their developers are relocating to other countries with unfree societies, like UAE or Kazakhstan.

        The Soviet Union had a huge software sector as well - the vast majority of software didn't make it through the iron curtain, other than a few notable ones. (Tetris literally broke the Soviet Union because they didn't know what to do with the fact that people wanted to license it for money).

        I would also call the large amount of Chinese so

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )

      Well they do have almost limitless sunshine so they could build huge solar plants and energy storage solutions that could power everything in their country and probably chunks of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Problem for Saudi Arabia is they have a lunatic in charge more interested in pet project boondoggles like NEOM than he is about pragmatic forward looking solutions.

  • For all of their faults.
    They are actually building the Line.
    Search for it. There are hundreds of heavy machines actually building it.
    It's In Progress and it's Very Ambitious and Very Wild and Potentially Very Cool.
    For Sci-Fi nerds like me, I would compare it to Larry Niven's Ringworld on Earth.

    • The pictures I see show a shallow trench. Literally, that’s all there is. News flash - digging a trench in the dirt is the easy part.

      I wish them luck. I really do. But SA gdp/capita is right in between Slovakia and Portugal, but most of that is due to their oil. They are sincerely trying to modernize, but their form of government is a serious weight around their necks.

      There are tons of videos on the net explaining why line cities are 1) an old idea and 2) a bad idea. Better to spend that 0.5 t

      • Hell just spend $100B on a crazy project and $400B on all the other actual good stuff you mentioned.

        Nevermind that even at $500B this thing was already overbudget before it was even thought of.

        • Yeah, I find it hard to believe that 500 billion is enough to build a major city nowadays. I've read that a big modern skyscraper can cost as much as 100 million per floor, and in SA I would be that costs could be even higher. 500 billion is NOT what is used to be. I would guess well into the low trillions to build the line, if it's even possible in that environment.
          • I agree with you in general, but I want to point out two advantages the Saudis have over "freer" parts of the world: labor and safety. Unskilled/lowskilled manpower is very cheap. They have a huge pool of people in the country on work visas that will put up with quite a bit for the opportunity of working there. They may be getting paid pennies, but that is more than they would be getting in their home country (Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc). They even sleep on the building site so you don't have to pay for lo
            • That's a good point, but I think their workforce "advantages" won't get them very far. Cheap unskilled construction labor will be great for digging the 175km trench. It's another matter to build a skyscraper that would almost crack the top 10 list in height and also be the largest modern building in the world? That's a structure where you DEFINITELY don't want to be cutting corners. Think of all of all those 10 year old cut-rate buildings in China that look good on the outside but are already crumbling insi

    • For Sci-Fi nerds like me, I would compare it to Larry Niven's Ringworld on Earth.

      The Line is better compared to Space Merchants than Ringworld.

    • The real question is how much money gets wasted before they've built enough to recognize the dystopian nightmare they've unleashed and they completely change the plan.

  • Nice thought, but they're missing the point. (Score:3)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @10:41PM (#63274349)
    Technology comes from investment in education, and particularly supporting the organic growth of tech companies from those investments. Trying to bribe existing tech companies to work with them is a chump strategy.

    Since education only flourishes in a liberal environment, they're well and truly fucked. And utterly deserving of it.

  • Great ! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sir_smashalot_3rd ( 8248420 ) on Wednesday February 08, 2023 @05:12AM (#63274895)
    A theocratic dictatorship that will kill and bonesaw critics in charge of cloud stuff. What could possibly go wrong ?

  • Invest here! We are a benevolent society that want to learn from you and welcome your capital!

    So we can steal it all.

  • Really? Come on, that's couch change.

  • ... you know Trump Social.... They can't do it because their ideology gets in the what of clear thinking and problem solving.

    They also lack imagination. I know. Lets build a "building" that is a half a kilometre high, covered in glass, in a straight line for 170 miles.

    Good luck with "pivoting"

    < choking on popcorn >

  • Server farms are famous for the amount of waste heat they generate - heat which needs to be removed for the computers to continue functioning. So let's locate a bunch of server farms in one of the hottest regions in the world. In an era of global warming when the average ambient temperature is increasing.

    Seriously?

  • Big Tech is pouring money there so they can sell massive government contracts, probably the Saudis want data to be stored there to make a deal. Nothing more will come out of this, maybe some jobs, but not innovation.

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