Saudi to host 2nd Global AI Summit in September
The Saudi capital Riyadh will host the second edition of the Global Artificial Intelligence Summit from 13 to 15 September.
The largest international AI event, with the participation of global policymakers and heads of technology, communications and investment companies, the summit, themed “Artificial Intelligence for the Good of Humanity,” is being organized by the Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence (SDAIA) under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is the chairman of SDAIA’s board of directors.
The summit will be held at King Abdulaziz Conference Center.
In this report, SPA reviews the importance of this summit, in which lies the importance of data and artificial intelligence and their effective roles in building smart cities, improving the quality of life and serving humanity, and reaching limitless horizons in investing data technology and artificial intelligence to make a difference towards a better future. Hence, “SDAIA” was established to be the cornerstone in empowering young national potentials by creating digital solutions that contribute to facing obstacles, building a future based on data and AI, and achieving the goals of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
Mankind has invested AI in various life aspects and expanded investments in making difference towards a better tomorrow, and this can be seen clearly in the efforts of “NEOM”, where human genius, the beauty of nature, and the diversity of environments come together, which urban development experts describe as the right place to find new solutions to the challenges facing the world, through the use of modern technologies without harming the environment and the surrounding nature. NEOM is working diligently to make sustainability a fundamental pillar in all its efforts and actions to build a better future for upcoming generations.
The Global AI Summit, in its second edition, confirms the success achieved by “SDAIA” in organizing the first summit two years ago at a time when the wheel of life came to a pause triggered by the repercussions of the Corona pandemic, as it was held virtually in implementation of the directives of the competent authorities in Saudi Arabia to protect the participants and attendees from the risks of the Corona outbreak and in line with international efforts and precautionary measures that were applied in the rest of the world at the time.
The importance of the second summit lies in the fact that it deals with modern AI-related topics and its multiple uses in human life in the 21st century and that the Kingdom seeks international leadership in the data and AI-based economies.
This renewed file gained the attention of the whole world as well as the United Nations and made them pace it within the sustainable development goals for the year 2030 due to its positive role in developing the present and the future.
Data and AI have become the world’s top priorities and the world is developing AI national strategies to benefit from its techniques in developing the public and private sectors and boosting the level of national economies through joint efforts and enhancing this field with the tributaries of innovation and knowledge, as AI is expected to boost global gross domestic product (GDP) by 14% by 2030, or nearly $15 trillion.
Therefore, Saudi Arabia has been keen to shed light on these modern technologies by organizing the second edition of this global summit, which includes some 100 sessions with more than 200 speakers and 3,000 participants seeking to enhance knowledge exchange via a rich dialogue on how to harness AI technologies to provide appropriate solutions to the complex problems in their application, empower enterprises, and shape the future image to transform society from local and regional visions to the unified economic framework.
The summit seeks to enhance the Kingdom’s position as a global destination for decision-makers and investors in the artificial intelligence technology sector, aiming to exchange expertise with AI experts from around the world, raise the level of investment in data and artificial intelligence technologies, form alliances and launch initiatives that transform intelligence ideas to projects on the ground.
The summit will discuss a number of topics that show the implications of the AI on the most important sectors, such as smart cities, human capacity development, health care, transportation, energy, culture and heritage, environment and economic mobility, with the aim of finding solutions to the current challenges and maximizing the use of the AI technologies.
The summit will reformulate the dialogue between technology, policies, and systems to find a unified application of artificial intelligence per human pillars centered around smart cities, capacity development, health care, transportation, energy, culture, environment, and digital economy. The summit will include a review of modern AI technologies through an accompanying exhibition, let alone the launch of several of initiatives and agreements between the largest global companies in the world, and the establishment of the NEOM Challenge for Artificial Intelligence competition.
The first summit discussed a set of topics related to artificial intelligence distributed over four tracks: We Draw a New Era, Artificial Intelligence and Governments, Artificial Intelligence Governance, and the Future of Artificial Intelligence. These were presented during keynote speeches, discussion sessions, dialogues, and interactive activities.
The summit coincided with the Kingdom’s hosting of the G20 Summit, in the context of the Kingdom’s endeavor to achieve its aspirations for global leadership through a (data, AI-based economy), emphasizing the importance of international cooperation for the use of artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, and its role in achieving sustainable development goals as well as discussing SDAIA’s role of in the strategic leadership of the alternative economy in cooperation with many relevant authorities to contribute to meeting the goals of Vision 2030.
The first summit comprised 30 sessions, in which nearly 60 speakers and entrepreneurs from 20 countries participated. The summit aimed to find a global destination for artificial intelligence activities, which is the Saudi capital Riyadh.
Several strategic agreements were signed during the summit with international companies, in addition to signing a memorandum of understanding with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to develop a global framework that supports international cooperation in artificial intelligence.
SDAIA also cooperated with the World Bank on a joint initiative in the context of the Kingdom’s endeavor to enhance the digital economy in developing countries and enable them to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence technologies and turn them into engines of economic development, in addition to hosting a special consultative session in cooperation with the United Nations to establish an advisory body on global cooperation in artificial intelligence to address issues around integration, coordination and capacity building.
At the conclusion of the first summit, the winners of the “NEOM Challenge” and the “Artificial Intelligence Artathon” were announced. The winners received prizes worth more than SR1 million.
