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Saudi Arabia Leads Regional AI through Laboratory, Global Development Corridor

Saudi Arabia hosts the second edition of the Global AI Summit under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz (SPA)
Saudi Arabia hosts the second edition of the Global AI Summit under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz (SPA)
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Saudi Arabia Leads Regional AI through Laboratory, Global Development Corridor

Saudi Arabia hosts the second edition of the Global AI Summit under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz (SPA)
Saudi Arabia hosts the second edition of the Global AI Summit under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz (SPA)

Saudi Arabia hosted the second edition of the Global AI Summit under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, who also chairs the Board of Directors of the Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence (SDAIA).

During the summit, the Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI) announced a new sophisticated AI lab with SenseTime Group. Aramco revealed a new strategic project, the "Global AI Corridor," aimed at building and commercializing the artificial intelligence ecosystem in the Kingdom.

- Vital Sectors

Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah al-Swaha said the Saudi government supports all tools that can help seize future opportunities by focusing on AI and its role in serving humanity and drawing the future of the Kingdom.

Swaha touched on the support and empowerment of the Crown Prince and its reflection on the community of entrepreneurs and companies in the Kingdom, adding that it resulted in the adoption of artificial intelligence solutions that serve vital fields in the health, energy, and digital economy sectors.

He recalled some entrepreneurial experiments of the Kingdom, mainly Aramco's adoption of AI solutions in digging and excavation that enabled the company to top energy companies in applying solutions that ensure environmental sustainability.

The Minister said the "The Line" project is a gift from the Crown Prince to humanity on "how to plan smart cities over the 150 coming years and how Saudi Arabia managed to adapt with AI solutions and data to build sustainable communities."

- Digital Gap

SDAIA President Abdullah al-Ghamdi explained that technology has significantly advanced, mainly in AI fields, and has become integral to all aspects of life.

He indicated that in previous centuries, it took nations 200 years to discover the first vaccine for smallpox before the disease was controlled, while this period was reduced to a few months since the spread of the first variant of COVID-19 thanks to technologies of AI.

Ghamdi stated: "We are about to reach the inherent capabilities of AI, where early signs are auspicious, where vertical farms that work today through AI tools can produce food with a production capacity of more than 400 folds of what conventional farms can produce."

AI has proven its ability to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent and can predict some cancer types better than humans, stated Ghamdi.

Ghamdi warned against the digital gap between countries in light of technological development.

According to a recent study, he stated that the gap between the two genders is enormous, where only 12 percent of AI researchers are women.

The official welcomed the recent UNESCO agreement that included recommendations regarding AI ethics and was endorsed by 193 countries, adding that all nations bear the responsibility of implanting these recommendations to enhance the credibility of AI.

- Global Corridor

The president and CEO of Aramco, Amin Nasser, announced the "Aramco Global AI Corridor" to develop and commercialize complex AI solutions, train Saudi talent, support Saudi start-ups and, together with global partners, build a local AI ecosystem.

Nasser said that project is in its first steps, and its design includes several aspects to play four leading roles.

"Establishing an excellence center to develop AI solutions for Saudi Aramco and interested institutions in Saudi Arabia in this technology with immense aspects, enhancing efforts to develop the high-influence intellectual property system connected to AI, and marketing intellectual property products commercially," he added.

Nasser added that the project aims to train and develop young Saudi competencies in AI and support a new generation of emerging Saudi companies based on their activity in the sector.

He explained that the project is called "Global Corridor" because it helps transfer knowledge, exchange ideas, and present solutions.

- Serving Humanity

Director of the Industrial Initiative at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Jurgen Schmidhuber indicated that during three decades, the sector provided human services and shifted in several sectors, namely economic and medical.

He pointed out that industrial networks, AI development, smart cities, and the technology industry helped develop and improve life, especially in the medical field, and reduced the time and effort in diagnosing cases.

Schmidhuber added that artificial intelligence in the auto industry is now used on a larger scale, and self-driving cars are safer through the mechanism of determining lanes, speed, and congestion, noting that it will be applied in smart cities, such as NEOM and others, in line with Vision 2030.

The professor added that companies are not using AI in challenging games, such as chess, which require mental effort and high concentration.

- Bulk Computing

Furthermore, the Vice President of IBM Quantum, Scott Crowder, confirmed that quantum computing would lead the emerging technologies, despite their differences from traditional devices in terms of memory and space.

Crowder noted that one of the global challenges lies in delivering quantum computing to working hands to enable them to build their skills and use them to develop work tasks.

He indicated that optimizing how quantum computing is used will provide software for algorithm developers to write new AI algorithms.

For his part, Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at George Washington University Tarek El-Ghazawi Tariq Al-Ghazzawi indicated that today's engineering requires emerging technologies, as traditional methods consume more time and effort.

- Research and Development

The Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI) announced at the conference its investment with SenseTime Group through a joint venture to establish SenseTime MEA, valued at $206.9 million.

The partnership will work to build a sophisticated AI lab, create highly skilled jobs for talented Saudis, and contribute to positioning Saudi Arabia as the region's leading AI-tech hub.

SCAI will work closely with SenseTime to develop solutions across diverse areas, including but not limited to the smart city, business intelligence, healthcare, and education domains.

It will also localize the company's cutting-edge computer vision and deep learning platform to enable the creation of intellectual properties, which will be of immense benefit to the Kingdom and the region.

The AI lab will serve as dedicated research and development center, allowing the next generation of data scientists to benefit from the transfer of technology and SenseTime's extensive expertise.

SCAI CEO Ayman al-Rashed said the agreement is an important strategic step to develop national capabilities and build a robust, innovation-driven AI ecosystem.

"We look forward to working closely to provide world-class AI solutions that will contribute to the success of the diverse smart city, business intelligence, healthcare, and education initiatives in the Kingdom and beyond," he indicated.

For his part, the Executive Chairman of the Board and CEO of SenseTime, Xu Li, indicated that this new joint venture would be a solid foundation for the company's ambitions to expand its footprint in the Kingdom, looking forward to a long-term alliance to enhance expertise in the field jointly.

The 2nd Global AI Summit kicked off Tuesday in Riyadh with the participation of more than 10,000 people and 200 speakers from 90 countries representing policymakers, specialists, and concerned figures with AI.

The three-day summit is held under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the headquarters of the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center in Riyadh.

It shows the Crown Prince's keenness to benefit from this vital sector to realize the development of Saudi Arabia into a pioneering global model in building the knowledge economies to serve current and future generations and in the realization of Vision 2030.

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Technology

Google DeepMind Chair: AI Could Cause 'Major' Incidents Within 2 Years Without Safeguards

Sir Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder and Chair of Google DeepMind at the International AI Summit at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Dublin, Ireland, 14 October 2026. EPA/BRYAN MEADE
Sir Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder and Chair of Google DeepMind at the International AI Summit at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Dublin, Ireland, 14 October 2026. EPA/BRYAN MEADE
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Google DeepMind Chair: AI Could Cause 'Major' Incidents Within 2 Years Without Safeguards

Sir Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder and Chair of Google DeepMind at the International AI Summit at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Dublin, Ireland, 14 October 2026. EPA/BRYAN MEADE
Sir Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder and Chair of Google DeepMind at the International AI Summit at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Dublin, Ireland, 14 October 2026. EPA/BRYAN MEADE

Artificial intelligence systems could cause "major" incidents within two years without adequate steps to make them safe as capabilities grow, Google's DeepMind chair Demis Hassabis said on Wednesday.

Speaking at an AI conference in Dublin, Hassabis described recent incidents as "early warning shots" fired by systems that "aren't that powerful yet."

"So the incidents aren't that major, but they could be looking into next year and the next couple of years if we don't do more work as an industry and individually as companies and governments on securing these systems," he said.

Technology

Why AI Makes Computer Worms Harder to Stop

Letters spelling "AI," a keyboard and a robotic hand in this illustration created on September 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Letters spelling "AI," a keyboard and a robotic hand in this illustration created on September 23, 2026. (Reuters)
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Why AI Makes Computer Worms Harder to Stop

Letters spelling "AI," a keyboard and a robotic hand in this illustration created on September 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Letters spelling "AI," a keyboard and a robotic hand in this illustration created on September 23, 2026. (Reuters)

Anthropic's warning that AI-powered "worms" could soon spread across smart gadgets is the latest in a series of studies showing how artificial intelligence could supercharge self-spreading malware.

A computer worm is malicious software that spreads between devices on its own.

In June, Nicolas Papernot, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Toronto, led a team that built a prototype AI worm using freely available AI models.

Papernot, who has signed an open letter with recommendations for policymakers, spoke to AFP about why AI makes these attacks harder to stop.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How is AI changing these types of attacks?

A: The reality is that a lot of these "IoT" (Internet of Things or connected home) devices have very poor cybersecurity hygiene, and so they are very easy targets for bad actors to compromise.

Historically, a worm would exploit a fixed set of vulnerabilities, and that meant you could fix these vulnerabilities and prevent the worm from propagating any further to devices that had been updated.

Now, with AI, an attacker can design a worm that tailors the attack strategy to that device's specifics and these vulnerabilities can be different.

This makes it significantly harder to interrupt the propagation of an AI-driven computer worm, because you have to anticipate all the possible vulnerabilities the devices might present.

Some of these vulnerabilities are not software bugs.

They can also be misconfigurations -- for instance, if someone has used the same password for multiple services, or hasn't configured a database properly.

What AI-driven malware does is accelerate the pace at which these vulnerabilities are exploited and the scale.

In the past, your corner coffee shop, or the laptop in your basement that you use very rarely, might not be up to date, but it wouldn't be targeted by a human attacker, because they don't have the resources and the time to do that.

Now, the autonomy gained by using AI means that all these devices that are less immediate targets become interesting targets as a launchpad to attack more interesting targets.

But we have to keep in mind that a human is launching an agent.

Once launched, the agent can replicate, as we showed in our work, but it is launched by a human.

Q: What can we do to mitigate the risks?

A: We won't bring the risk to zero and we have to realize that, despite the fact that some of these vulnerability fixes are available, people don't update their devices or don't apply the fixes in a timely manner.

Despite cybersecurity experts calling for increased cybersecurity for decades, we still live in a world where a lot more can be invested in improving the security of our computer systems.

There are really three things we recommend in the very short term.

The first is to change development and testing practices to ensure that AI models are initially disconnected from the internet, as a precaution, to understand their behavior better before we expose critical infrastructure on the internet [to them].

The second recommendation is to create an international body to standardize both how we train and how we contain AI models. Both are important. We want to train models that are safer.

The last part is about making reporting of security incidents mandatory. Right now, we are only getting information as a function of what AI developers are willing to release, and that's a big problem.

In particular, the academic community needs a lot more information about incidents to be able to develop countermeasures much more quickly.

Otherwise, we have to do a lot of research on understanding the threat first, before we can develop the countermeasures. Otherwise, we won't see what bad actors are doing until an attack is launched.

Technology

Microsoft’s Brad Smith Calls for ‘Real and Effective’ AI Safety Standards

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith addresses a keynote in Brussels, Belgium April 30, 2025. (Reuters)
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith addresses a keynote in Brussels, Belgium April 30, 2025. (Reuters)
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Microsoft’s Brad Smith Calls for ‘Real and Effective’ AI Safety Standards

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith addresses a keynote in Brussels, Belgium April 30, 2025. (Reuters)
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith addresses a keynote in Brussels, Belgium April 30, 2025. (Reuters)

Microsoft president Brad Smith warned Tuesday that industry and governments must "act with urgency" to create "real and effective safety standards" to contain the risks linked to artificial intelligence.

"We're going to need for AI what we have for everything else in life... we need real and effective safety standards, and we need the public to have confidence in them," Smith told a group of reporters on the eve of an international AI summit in Dublin.

Concerns about AI safety have soared in recent months after models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic were involved in security incidents during testing, piling on pressure to regulate the technology.

"We've reached a point where we obviously need companies in the industry to step up and do more to address AI safety issues," Smith said. "I think we reached a time when we're going to need governments to do more as well."

The Microsoft boss outlined the company's proposals to strengthen safety across the sector, starting with a requirement that AI agents be equipped with "safety brakes" that users could activate in the event of an incident.

"The notion, especially for any AI that's running on critical infrastructure or some other kind of automated system, they have the ability to turn off or slow down," he explained.

Smith also called for AI providers to face mandatory incident-reporting obligations.

"If you are a business and you suffer a security breach that leads to the loss of consumer data, you have to let consumers know," he said. "The same logic should apply to people harmed by an AI agent," with a legal obligation to inform those affected.

The Microsoft president further advocated stronger testing and evaluation of AI models before they are released, to ensure they are safe.

"We need to act with urgency," he warned.

Smith is the latest in a series of leading industry figures to highlight the need for increased vigilance around AI technology. Among them, Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, has pledged to slow development unilaterally if necessary.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tuesday said AI company leaders must take responsibility for ensuring the technology is developed safely.

Speaking in Paris, Huang said: "The full potential of AI can only be realized if we advance the capabilities of AI and the safety and security of AI at the same time."

"These are not conflicting goals. These are, in fact, the same goal."