Government Press Conference at LEAP 2024
His Excellency the Minister of Communications and Information Technology (CIT), Eng. Abdullah Alswaha, reviewed the qualitative leaps achieved by the Kingdom during 2023 — with the support and empowerment of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Prime Minister — at the level of digital economy growth and entrepreneurship, as the technology market grew to more than SAR 183 billion ($48.8B), a growth rate of 10% over 2022.
This came during the Government Press Conference held on March 6 by the Center for Government Communication at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center. This was in conjunction with LEAP 2024, organized by the Ministry of CIT, Tahaluf, and the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones (SAFCSP). The press conference hosted H.E. Eng. Abdullah Alswaha and Mr. Faisal bin Saud Al-Khamisi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of SAFCSP, with H.E. Minister of Media Mr. Salman Al-Dossary in attendance.
H.E. Alswaha pointed to the historic achievement realized by the support and empowerment of the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, represented in the Kingdom's leading position in the Middle East and North Africa region in venture capital investments, capturing 52% of the investment volume. The Kingdom also achieved more than $1.3 billion with a growth rate of 33% over the previous year, amid a sharp 38% global decline in VC investments.
"The size of the technology market in the Kingdom reached SAR 183 billion by the end of 2023 with a growth rate exceeding 10% over 2022. The Kingdom also maintained its position as the largest cluster of talents and human capabilities with more than 350,000 talented individuals, in addition to the qualitative leap in empowering women from 7% as a baseline to 35%," said H.E. Alswaha.
He carried on to mention the investments attracted by LEAP this year, which amounted to $11.9 billion, coming from major global technology companies such as AWS, IBM, ServiceNow, alongside Aramco's investments in artificial intelligence and large language models.
For his part, Al-Khamisi affirmed that LEAP is the nucleus of the wise leadership's support, empowerment, and direction, which has made the Kingdom the focus of attention and an unrivaled central hub for technology, innovation, and investment in the region. He pointed to the attendance, investments, and agreements between government and private, local, and global entities witnessed at the third edition of the world’s most attended tech event.