The Saudi Data & AI Authority (SDAIA) and Alibaba Cloud have signed an MoU to drive smart cities innovation in Saudi Arabia using artificial intelligence (AI).

The partnership will support Saudi Arabia’s journey to develop smart cities. It will focus on driving innovation through AI by helping the kingdom’s cities respond to the citizens’ needs while improving the quality of life, and to transform the country to become more socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.

It will also use data and AI to make the cities smarter while improving their safety and security.

SDAIA and Chinese multinational Alibaba Cloud will be working collaboratively to develop digital and AI in several areas including safety and security, mobility, urban planning, energy, education, and health by leveraging the power of Alibaba Cloud’s AI platform so cities can intelligently manage city services and create smart services that will make them more resilient and responsive to the needs of the citizens.

“Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 has clear goals to transform KSA cities into smart ones by unlocking the value of city data as a national asset to realise Vision 2030 aspirations,” said Abdullah Bin Sharaf Alghandi, president of SDAIA. “Our journey to creating smart cities that rank among the smartest in the world is already well underway with Riyadh city. This partnership with Alibaba Cloud will support the acceleration of the transformation of our cities, through enabling intelligence-driven technologies and AI techniques that will fuel sustainable economic development and a high quality of life to our citizens.”

The MoU is in line with SDAIA’s objective to facilitate the kingdom’s national data and AI strategy, and to increase AI innovation and smart cities capabilities to transform the kingdom into a data-driven economy by 2030.

SDAIA and Alibaba Cloud plan to deliver fruitful results for scientific research, technological development, innovation and digital transformation of traditional industries in Saudi Arabia.

“We are very pleased to join hands with SDAIA and get an opportunity to contribute to the development of this world-class digital transformation project,” said Phillip Liu, general manager in Middle East and Africa for Alibaba Cloud. “We are proud to bring Alibaba Cloud’s proven cloud and AI products as well as our global experiences and to combine these with the expertise from SDAIA. We look forward to bringing positive changes to the lives of Saudis and to make our humble contribution to the realisation of Vision 2030.”