Saudi Arabia Offers E-Visas to Esports World Cup Ticket Holders

19:19-26 June 2024 AD ـ 19 Thul-Hijjah 1445 AH

Saudi Arabia Offers E-Visas to Esports World Cup Ticket Holders

The Esports World Cup Foundation, in partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Tourism, announced on Thursday that electronic visas (e-visas) will be offered for Esports World Cup ticket holders.

The event, which will take place in Riyadh for the first time, will span eight weeks from July 3 to August 25.

The initiative aims to streamline the entry procedures for visitors to the Kingdom who wish to attend the tournament and to ensure the success of all international and high-quality events hosted by the Kingdom.

Interested individuals can visit the Esports World Cup website for more information about the tournament and to attend its events. They can also apply for a visa through the "Saudi Visa" national visa platform to obtain a 90-day single-entry visa online.

Visitors to the Esports World Cup will have the opportunity to participate in various activities blending sports, entertainment, education, culture, and creativity, hosted by Boulevard Riyadh City.

These activities will be suitable for all family members. The event will feature over 1,500 players from 500 elite international clubs participating in 22 tournaments with substantial financial prizes totaling over $60 million, the highest in the sector's history.

The Esports World Cup aligns with one of the pillars of the National Gaming and Esports Strategy, launched by Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia.

The event aims to bolster the Kingdom's global standing as a premier gaming and electronic-sports destination while promoting tourism, diversifying the economy, and developing promising sectors according to the Kingdom's Vision 2030. It also underscores the vital role of the gaming and esports sectors in fostering communication between societies and promoting global reach.

Meta Criticizes EU Antitrust Move Against WhatsApp Block on AI Rivals

(FILES) This illustration photograph taken on December 1, 2025, shows the logo of WhatsApp displayed on a smartphone's screen, in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)

Asharq Al Awsat

09:33-9 February 2026 AD ـ 21 Sha’ban 1447 AH

Asharq Al Awsat

09:33-9 February 2026 AD ـ 21 Sha’ban 1447 AH

Meta Criticizes EU Antitrust Move Against WhatsApp Block on AI Rivals

Meta Platforms on Monday criticized EU regulators after they charged the US tech giant with breaching antitrust rules and threaten to halt its block on ⁠AI rivals on its messaging service WhatsApp.

"The facts are that there is no reason for ⁠the EU to intervene in the WhatsApp Business API. There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites, and ⁠industry partnerships," a Meta spokesperson said in an email.

"The Commission's logic incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots."

Technology

Chinese Robot Makers Ready for Lunar New Year Entertainment Spotlight

A folk performer breathes fire during a performance ahead of Lunar New Year celebrations in a village in Huai'an, in China's eastern Jiangsu Province on February 7, 2026. (AFP)

09:01-9 February 2026 AD ـ 21 Sha’ban 1447 AH

Chinese Robot Makers Ready for Lunar New Year Entertainment Spotlight

A folk performer breathes fire during a performance ahead of Lunar New Year celebrations in a village in Huai'an, in China's eastern Jiangsu Province on February 7, 2026. (AFP)

In China, humanoid robots are serving as Lunar New Year entertainment, with their manufacturers pitching their song-and-dance skills to the general public as well as potential customers, investors and government officials.

On Sunday, Shanghai-based robotics start-up Agibot live-streamed an almost hour-long variety show featuring its robots dancing, performing acrobatics and magic, lip-syncing ballads and performing in comedy sketches. Other Agibot humanoid robots waved from an audience section.

An estimated 1.4 million people watched on the Chinese streaming platform Douyin. Agibot, which called the promotional stunt "the world's first robot-powered gala," did not have an immediate estimate for total viewership.

The ‌show ran a ‌week ahead of China's annual Spring Festival gala ‌to ⁠be aired ‌by state television, an event that has become an important - if unlikely - venue for Chinese robot makers to show off their success.

A squad of 16 full-size humanoids from Unitree joined human dancers in performing at China Central Television's 2025 gala, drawing stunned accolades from millions of viewers.

Less than three weeks later, Unitree's founder was invited to a high-profile symposium chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Hangzhou-based robotics ⁠firm has since been preparing for a potential initial public offering.

This year's CCTV gala will include ‌participation by four humanoid robot startups, Unitree, Galbot, Noetix ‍and MagicLab, the companies and broadcaster ‍have said.

Agibot's gala employed over 200 robots. It was streamed on social ‍media platforms RedNote, Sina Weibo, TikTok and its Chinese version Douyin. Chinese-language television networks HTTV and iCiTi TV also broadcast the performance.

"When robots begin to understand Lunar New Year and begin to have a sense of humor, the human-computer interaction may come faster than we think," Ma Hongyun, a photographer and writer with 4.8 million followers on Weibo, said in a post.

Agibot, which says ⁠its humanoid robots are designed for a range of applications, including in education, entertainment and factories, plans to launch an initial public offering in Hong Kong, Reuters has reported.

State-run Securities Times said Agibot had opted out of the CCTV gala in order to focus spending on research and development. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

The company demonstrated two of its robots to Xi during a visit in April last year.

US billionaire Elon Musk, who has pivoted automaker Tesla toward a focus on artificial intelligence and the Optimus humanoid robot, has said the only competitive threat he faces in robotics is from Chinese firms.

Technology

AI to Track Icebergs Adrift at Sea in Boon for Science

Asharq Al Awsat

07:14-5 February 2026 AD ـ 17 Sha’ban 1447 AH

07:13-5 February 2026 AD ـ 17 Sha’ban 1447 AH

Asharq Al Awsat

07:14-5 February 2026 AD ـ 17 Sha’ban 1447 AH

07:13-5 February 2026 AD ـ 17 Sha’ban 1447 AH

AI to Track Icebergs Adrift at Sea in Boon for Science

British scientists said Thursday that a world-first AI tool to catalogue and track icebergs as they break apart into smaller chunks could fill a "major blind spot" in predicting climate change.

Icebergs release enormous volumes of freshwater when they melt on the open water, affecting global climate patterns and altering ocean currents and ecosystems, reported AFP.

But scientists have long struggled to keep track of these floating behemoths once they break into thousands of smaller chunks, their fate and impact on the climate largely lost to the seas.

To fill in the gap, the British Antarctic Survey has developed an AI system that automatically identifies and names individual icebergs at birth and tracks their sometimes decades-long journey to a watery grave.

Using satellite images, the tool captures the distinct shape of icebergs as they break off -- or calve -- from glaciers and ice sheets on land.

As they disintegrate over time, the machine performs a giant puzzle problem, linking the smaller "child" fragments back to the "parent" and creating detailed family trees never before possible at this scale.

It represents a huge improvement on existing methods, where scientists pore over satellite images to visually identify and track only the largest icebergs one by one.

The AI system, which was tested using satellite observations over Greenland, provides "vital new information" for scientists and improves predictions about the future climate, said the British Antarctic Survey.

Knowing where these giant slabs of freshwater were melting into the ocean was especially crucial with ice loss expected to increase in a warming world, it added.

"What's exciting is that this finally gives us the observations we've been missing," Ben Evans, a machine learning expert at the British Antarctic Survey, said in a statement.

"We've gone from tracking a few famous icebergs to building full family trees. For the first time, we can see where each fragment came from, where it goes and why that matters for the climate."

This use of AI could also be adapted to aid safe passage for navigators through treacherous polar regions littered by icebergs.

Iceberg calving is a natural process. But scientists say the rate at which they were being lost from Antarctica is increasing, probably because of human-induced climate change.

Saudi Arabia Offers E-Visas to Esports World Cup Ticket Holders