Riyadh – Sharikat Mubasher: Saudi Arabia concluded its participation at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026 in Davos with a series of major agreements and strategic partnerships across AI, industrial transformation, sustainability, and scientific research.
The most notable deal was a Strategic Financing Framework Agreement between HUMAIN and the National Infrastructure Fund, valued at up to $1.2 billion, to support the development of up to 250 MW of hyperscale AI data center capacity in the Kingdom.
In the industrial sector, the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, announced the Lighthouse Operating System, a national framework to accelerate manufacturing transformation and diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy.
Saudi Arabia also strengthened its global innovation ties by launching the Saudi–U.S. Innovation Partnership, a new platform created through The Global Innovation Platform, a strategic partnership between Saudi HoldCo and GoldenPoint Global. Anchored in Riyadh and Austin, the initiative aims to accelerate bilateral collaboration in life sciences, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing, aligning two of the world’s most dynamic innovation ecosystems.
On the sustainability front, the UNCCD COP16 Presidency launched the Business4Land Champions’ Council, a coalition of CEOs and investors to accelerate land restoration and drought resilience. The Kingdom also confirmed it will host the first Global Coral Reef Summit in 2026, bringing global leaders and scientists together to scale coral reef protection and recovery.
Other agreements included a space and health research collaboration between Saudi Digital Medicine and Weill Cornell Medicine, focusing on space research and computational biology technologies.
