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NDF Partners with SDB to Establish $120 Mln Venture Funds for Gaming, Esports Industry in Saudi Arabia

The National Development Fund (NDF), in collaboration with the Social Development Bank (SDB), announced on Tuesday the signing of two agreements to establish two venture funds with a total size of SAR450 million ($120 million) to bolster the gaming and Esports industry in Saudi Arabia. (SPA)
The National Development Fund (NDF), in collaboration with the Social Development Bank (SDB), announced on Tuesday the signing of two agreements to establish two venture funds with a total size of SAR450 million ($120 million) to bolster the gaming and Esports industry in Saudi Arabia. (SPA)
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NDF Partners with SDB to Establish $120 Mln Venture Funds for Gaming, Esports Industry in Saudi Arabia

The National Development Fund (NDF), in collaboration with the Social Development Bank (SDB), announced on Tuesday the signing of two agreements to establish two venture funds with a total size of SAR450 million ($120 million) to bolster the gaming and Esports industry in Saudi Arabia. (SPA)
The National Development Fund (NDF), in collaboration with the Social Development Bank (SDB), announced on Tuesday the signing of two agreements to establish two venture funds with a total size of SAR450 million ($120 million) to bolster the gaming and Esports industry in Saudi Arabia. (SPA)

In an innovative move to bolster the gaming and Esports industry in Saudi Arabia, the National Development Fund (NDF), in collaboration with the Social Development Bank (SDB), announced on Tuesday the signing of two agreements to establish two venture funds with a total size of SAR450 million ($120 million).

The announcement was made during the LEAP 2024 technology conference in Riyadh, marking a significant step towards nurturing the thriving gaming and Esports industry.

The initiative is part of the Gaming and Esports Financing Program, cooperating with the Saudi Esports Federation.

Merak Capital and IMPACT 46, the entities managing the two funds, will provide development financing for gaming and Esports companies through equity investments to accelerate growth, boost local content development, and amplify the industry's economic and social impact to achieve the objectives of the National Gaming and Esports Strategy and the Digital Content Program (Ignite).

Merak Capital is set to manage the first investment fund, which will be SAR300 million ($80 million). The fund will focus on establishing a gaming accelerator backed by venture investment to spur growth and cultivate local talent in the gaming industry. The goal is to position Saudi companies as leaders in this vibrant sector.

The second fund, managed by IMPACT46 and with a total value of SAR150 million ($40 million), seeks to stimulate private sector investment in the local gaming and Esports industry. Additionally, it seeks to attract international firms and studios to establish a more substantial presence in the Kingdom, further enriching the sector's ecosystem.

Governor of NDF, Dr. Stephen Grove, stated: "The gaming and Esports industry has seen exponential growth globally, generating substantial revenue and job opportunities. With Saudi Arabia's young demographic and other attractive investment components, NDF and our partners are prioritizing innovative financing solutions for this industry. We aim to ensure its financial sustainability and contribute to the Kingdom's economic diversification and job creation efforts."

CEO of SDB, Eng. Sultan Al-Humaidi emphasized SDB's commitment to supporting the gaming and e-sports industry, recognizing its potential for growth within the Kingdom.

"Our objective is to cultivate the industry to self-sufficiency, positioning the Kingdom as a global hub. We provide the necessary support to ensure this venture succeeds, advancing the Saudi digital economy forward as a key component of the Kingdom's digital transformation goals aligned with Saudi Vision 2030," he added.

This comes as part of NDF's efforts to develop the promising Saudi sectors and bolster their contribution to the national economy. This goal can be accomplished through empowerment and financial development support to establish an environment that attracts local talent, delivers promising experiences, and targets top-tier game production and development projects.

Established on October 2, 2017, under the leadership of Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al-Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, NDF aims to drive the Kingdom's economic transformation and sustainable development. Overseeing 12 development funds and banks, NDF strives to boost performance, foster coordination, and amplify economic and social impacts, focusing on promising investment sectors that support the objectives of Saudi Vision 2030.

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Business

Google Cloud CEO to Asharq Al-Awsat: Our Data Centers Are Crisis-Resilient, Not Bound by Borders

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Google Cloud CEO to Asharq Al-Awsat: Our Data Centers Are Crisis-Resilient, Not Bound by Borders

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

At Google Cloud Next in Las Vegas, Thomas Kurian, chief executive of Google Cloud, responded to a question from Asharq Al-Awsat about attacks on hyperscale cloud data centers amid regional tensions by moving quickly beyond physical protection. The issue, he suggested, is no longer simply how to defend infrastructure, but how to ensure customers are not left dependent on one location when disruption occurs.

Kurian said Google Cloud has managed through global conflict scenarios for many years and has built not only physical safeguards, but also a private global network with extensive redundancy linking its data centers.

The company can shift workloads away from affected locations and replicate them globally because its cloud regions operate as a unified and consistently synchronized architecture, he explained. For customers, he argued, that means they are not tied to a single physical site.

His response moved the discussion from infrastructure protection toward a broader strategic question: whether cloud architecture itself has become part of business continuity planning.

From experimentation to operations

That framing also offered one of the clearest ways to understand Google Cloud’s broader message at Next 2026. Throughout the event, attended by more than 30,000 participants, the company sought to underscore that enterprise AI is moving from experimentation into what it calls the agentic enterprise.

Google Cloud said roughly 75 percent of its customers already use its AI-powered products. Some 330 customers processed more than one trillion tokens over the past 12 months, while more than 35 customers surpassed 10 trillion tokens. The company also said its frontier models now process more than 16 billion tokens per minute, up from 10 billion in the previous quarter.

The purpose of those figures was to signal that AI is no longer a side experiment, but an operational layer companies want to use across their businesses.

Integration and openness together

Perhaps most revealing in the private Q&A with Kurian was what he suggested about where competition is heading. He argued that Google Cloud’s distinguishing advantage lies in combining proprietary chips, frontier models, infrastructure and tools, allowing the company to optimize the entire stack, from computing power to the efficiency of AI agents.

The broader argument was that the next phase of AI will not be determined only by who has the strongest model, but by who can design the broader system around it most effectively. At the same time, Kurian paired this with another point equally important to enterprise customers: openness. He stressed that he does not expect companies to rely exclusively on Google Cloud and said the company has deliberately kept its architecture open.

He pointed to support for multiple models, Google’s own chips, close collaboration with NVIDIA, compatibility with different data platforms and partnerships with third parties in security.

That matters because enterprises want the efficiency of deep integration without being locked into a closed environment. Google Cloud is signaling it can provide a vertically integrated stack while still operating across diverse enterprise technology environments.

Sovereignty at the forefront

Sovereignty also emerged as a major theme. Asked whether European customers would receive the full product offering, Kurian said the broader product is already available in Europe in compliance with sovereignty regulations, hosted across multiple sites including Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland and the United Kingdom.

Though the answer focused on Europe, its significance extends beyond the continent. Enterprise customers, including Saudi Arabia, increasingly want advanced AI services without giving up control over where their data is hosted and processed. That is not a side issue, but part of the architecture of trust itself.

Connectors make the difference

Kurian also addressed another practical issue tied to one of enterprise AI’s real bottlenecks.

Asked who would build the connections between Gemini Enterprise and the many applications companies already use, he said Google Cloud is doing so itself. The company already offers more than 100 connectors covering document repositories, software-as-a-service applications and databases.

He added that Google Cloud also provides a framework for building connectors and supports standards such as Bring Your Own MCP for custom-built systems.

The significance of that point lies at the heart of why many enterprise AI projects struggle: a model may be impressive in isolation, but it only becomes useful when it connects to where work actually happens — documents, business applications, records and databases.

AI and defense

The cybersecurity portion of the discussion was no less significant.

Kurian said Google Cloud recognized some time ago that as models improve at understanding software, malicious actors would use them to analyze code, discover vulnerabilities and attack systems. In his view, the response must also be driven by AI.

He described one layer focused on analyzing and repairing a company’s own code, pointing to a new model called Code Defender that helps fix vulnerabilities.

A second layer focuses on external threats, including threat hunting and threat intelligence. He pointed to Dark Web Intelligence announced at the conference, saying it can prioritize the threats customers should defend against with about 90 percent accuracy.

He also linked this logic to Google Cloud’s acquisition of Wiz, describing a layered model in which a red agent probes systems for weaknesses, a blue team identifies the needed fixes and a green layer carries out remediation.

Business

Saudi Industry Minister Discusses Boosting Industrial Cooperation with Oman

Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef and President of Oman's Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones Qais Al-Yousef meet in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)
Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef and President of Oman's Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones Qais Al-Yousef meet in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)
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Saudi Industry Minister Discusses Boosting Industrial Cooperation with Oman

Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef and President of Oman's Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones Qais Al-Yousef meet in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)
Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef and President of Oman's Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones Qais Al-Yousef meet in Riyadh on Monday. (SPA)

Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef met in Riyadh on Monday with President of Oman's Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones Qais Al-Yousef for talks on boosting industrial cooperation and developing joint investments between their countries.

They tackled means to strengthen cooperation in the fields of industrial cities and special economic zones, in addition to developing strategic partnerships that enhance industrial integration between the two countries in a manner that supports regional supply chains and boosts the competitiveness of the Saudi and Omani economies.

They stressed the importance of expanding industrial and investment partnerships, exchanging expertise and experiences in developing industrial infrastructure, and enabling high-quality investments in priority industrial sectors. This aligns with the objectives of the two countries’ national visions, contributing to sustainable economic development and achieving shared interests.

The meeting comes within the framework of strengthening economic relations between Saudi Arabia and Oman and advancing cooperation in the industrial sector to achieve the goals of economic development and industrial integration between them.

Business

Gold Hits Three-Week Low with US-Iran Talks, Central Bank Decisions in Focus

A jeweller holds gold bars in Cairo, Egypt, March 9, 2026. (Reuters)
A jeweller holds gold bars in Cairo, Egypt, March 9, 2026. (Reuters)
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Gold Hits Three-Week Low with US-Iran Talks, Central Bank Decisions in Focus

A jeweller holds gold bars in Cairo, Egypt, March 9, 2026. (Reuters)
A jeweller holds gold bars in Cairo, Egypt, March 9, 2026. (Reuters)

Gold fell to a three-week low on Tuesday, as elevated oil prices kept inflation concerns high, while investors awaited key central bank decisions this week to see if the Middle East conflict has altered the interest rate outlook.

Spot gold was down 1.1% at $4,628.63 per ounce, ‌as of 0746 GMT, ‌its lowest level since April 7. ‌US ⁠gold futures for June ⁠delivery fell 1.1% to $4,642.90.

US President Donald Trump is unhappy with the latest Iranian proposal on resolving the two-month war, a US official said, dampening hopes for a resolution to the conflict that has disrupted energy supplies, fueled inflation, and killed thousands.

"Geopolitical headlines are still the main driver (of gold prices). In the ⁠event of a deal (between the US and Iran) ‌or an interim deal, the ‌dollar should weaken, and gold will likely break out to the upside," ‌said Edward Meir, analyst at Marex.

The dollar gained, ‌and oil prices rose above $111 a barrel, as the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway remained largely shut.

Higher crude oil prices can stoke inflation by raising transportation and production costs, increasing the likelihood of higher ‌interest rates.

While gold is considered an inflation hedge, high interest rates make yield-bearing assets ⁠more attractive, weighing ⁠on its appeal.

The Bank of Japan kept interest rates steady on Tuesday but three of its nine-member board proposed hiking borrowing costs, signaling policymakers' concerns over inflationary pressures from the Middle East conflict.

The US Federal Reserve is also widely expected to hold interest rates steady at the end of its two-day meeting on Wednesday.

Investors will be focusing on other central bank decisions this week, including those from the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada.

Spot silver fell 2.9% to $73.28 per ounce, platinum lost 1.6% to $1,951.33, and palladium was down 1.6% at $1,453.38.