Saudi Arabia is offering 90-day e-visas to Esports World Cup ticket holders as it gears up to host the debut competition that aims to put the kingdom on the international gaming map.

Boulevard Riyadh City is the venue where more than 2,500 players will compete for a $60 million prize pool, the largest in esports history, from July 4 to Aug. 25.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, himself a “Call of Duty” fan, has earmarked $38 billion from the Public Investment Fund – with the aim of attracting 250 gaming companies and studios to set up shop in the country while creating 39,000 video game-related jobs.

The homegrown strategy builds on the kingdom’s credentials in the e-arena with investments in the biggest players like Tencent, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft.

In March, Saudi Arabia’s National Development Fund and the Social Development Bank announced the establishment of two venture capital funds with a combined value of $120 million to back new esports companies in the kingdom.

Buttressed by more than $42 billion in property deals and loans since February, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will be pulling out all the stops this weekend when he hosts a business summit catering to European leaders and investors.

At the peak of Egypt’s two-year financial crisis, trade with member-states of the European Union in 2023 slid 19% from the previous year – a benchmark El-Sisi will seek to reverse during the two-day Egypt-EU Investment Conference that starts on Saturday. As exports to Europe plunged almost 32% last year, Italy, Spain and Greece were the top European importers of Egyptian goods.

Joining the Egyptian President, cabinet members and Cairo business leaders at the Al Manara International Conference Centre will be European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, along with government officials and investors from across the continent.

Egypt, coaxed by the International Monetary Fund, has embarked on a path of economic reform that includes divestment of billions in government assets and devaluation of the pound while implementing a fixed exchange rate. In turn the IMF and World Bank are arranging $8.7 billion in loans to help put the economy on course.

A breakthrough $35 billion property deal captured the attention of world investors in February as Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ led a group that bought development rights to Egypt’s Mediterranean coastal headland of Ras El-Hekma – soon to be dotted with luxury beach resorts.

As Dubai’s stratospheric real estate market scales ever higher, property buyers are getting help from new tools that use artificial intelligence to evaluate prices.

In collaboration with the Dubai Land Department, UAE property portal Bayut is launching TruEstimate, an AI-powered application that seeks to deliver an objective price tag derived from publicly available real estate data.

The estimates take into account recent sales of similar properties, current market trends, and property features.

“In a market characterized by constant change, having a better understanding of home values is essential,” Arabian Business quoted Buyut CEO Haider Ali Khan as saying.

The launch of TruEstimate comes as Dubai’s real estate sector experiences unprecedented growth, with property transactions in the emirate reaching AED 200 billion ($54.5 billion) in the past six months.

Saudi Arabia’s quest for lithium to power its nascent electric vehicle industry is leading to stronger links with South America, as evidenced by the Future Investment Initiative’s conference in Brazil earlier this month.

Saudi-owned Almar Water Solutions is now looking to form a partnership with Chile’s state mining giant Codelco in its planned Maricunga lithium mining project, Reuters reports.

Almar’s CEO Carlos Cosin told the news agency that the Spain-based firm, which focuses on water solutions for renewable energy production, wants to leverage its technology in the extraction of battery-metal lithium, a water-intensive process.

As part of a Saudi conglomerate, Cousin said Almar would be able to bring in another strong financial partner if included in a consortium to develop the Maricunga salt flat.

The company’s technology can be used in metal separation in the microelectronics industry, direct lithium extraction and battery recycling, he said.

Saudi Arabia is on track to become the world’s largest construction market as the kingdom pours billions of dollars into new urban hubs and tourism destinations underpinning its economic diversification strategy, according to Knight Frank.

Since Vision 2030 was laid out eight years ago, the country has announced projects worth more than $1.25 trillion spanning residential properties in the capital Riyadh to far-flung mega-projects like Neom, the real estate consultancy group found.

The total construction output value is forecast to reach $181.5 billion by the end of 2028, up almost 30% from 2023 levels, the London-based firm said in a report published Monday.

The construction boom is down to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s mandate to transition the oil-dependent economy to become a magnet for skilled workers and foreign tourists.

“We are currently witnessing a historical transformation unfolding in Saudi Arabia with construction projects standing out in their design scale and value,” said Mohamed Nabil, regional partner and head of project and development services for the Middle East and North Africa at Knight Frank.

Gulf trade officials, executives and entrepreneurs have descended on suburban Washington D.C. this week for the SelectUSA Investment Summit, the U.S. government’s annual dog-and-pony show aimed at drumming up business partnerships around the world.

The four-day conference in National Harbor, Maryland, which drew close to 5,000 participants last year, kicked off on Sunday with a smorgasbord of panel discussions that included a “data dive” on foreign direct investment into the U.S. from the Middle East and Africa.

Representing the UAE at the U.S. Commerce Department-sponsored confab, is Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade, and executives from some 35 Emirati companies. “With over $1 trillion invested across America, the UAE has already ‘Selected the USA,’ and we look forward to deepening this important trade and economic relationship,” Al Zeyoudi said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia, which generated $34 billion in bilateral trade with the U.S. last year, is active both on the summit floor and the sidelines, where officials from Riyadh attended meetings on Sunday held by the Saudi-U.S. Trade and Investment Framework Agreement Council.

Among other events surrounding SelectUSA are a session titled “Trade Opportunities between the Middle East and the United States,” which features participation from U.S. ambassadors stationed in Gulf countries, and the fifth GCC-U.S. Trade and Investment Dialogue Forum.

Nvidia has agreed to share its artificial intelligence technology with Qatar’s Ooredoo telecom group while stopping short of disclosing the specifics.

The Silicon Valley chipmaker signed a deal that allows Ooredoo to use its equipment at data centers it owns in Qatar, Algeria, Tunisia, Oman, Kuwait and the Maldives, Reuters reports.

The agreement marks Nvidia’s first large-scale launch in a region to which Washington has curbed the export of sophisticated U.S. chips to stop Chinese firms from using Middle Eastern countries as a backdoor to access the newest AI technology, the news agency said.

Nvidia’s Senior Vice President of telecom Ronnie Vasishta told Reuters that providing the technology will allow Ooredoo to better help its customers deploy generative AI applications.

The companies did not describe exactly what elements of Nvidia’s technology will be shared with Ooredoo or the value of the deal, which was signed on the sidelines of the TM Forum in Copenhagen on June 19.

Cash from Gulf sovereign wealth funds is pouring into China and Southeast Asia as the region’s deep pockets look beyond the U.S. and Europe for investment targets.

About $2.3 billion of sovereign capital from the Middle East flowed into the greater China market last year, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Kenneth Hui said at a conference on Monday.

That figure is up from about $100 million in 2022, said Hui, the external executive director of Hong Kong’s central bank, citing data from Global SWF. 

Chinese financiers and regulators have made frequent trips to engage with the Gulf market, which traditionally was served by Europe, Hui added.

“This is the kind of money that we want to see coming in, not just for its own sake, but also for the wider impact,” Hui said. “This money is important because they often create good demonstrative effect to their local industry and the general public.”

Meanwhile, Southeast Asia is also getting a piece of the action as Middle Eastern institutional investors eye fast-growing economies such as Vietnam amid growing tensions between China and the West, according to TVM Capital Healthcare, a Dubai and Singapore dual-headquartered private equity firm. 

“Given the political developments with China and the United States, Middle Eastern countries are trying to stay fairly neutral and develop deep ties with everybody, including and in particular Southeast Asian nations,” said Helmut Schuehsler, Chairman and CEO at TVM Capital Healthcare after his firm announced the closing of its second Middle East fund, which drew $250 million last month.

The TVM Healthcare Afiyah Fund LP saw the participation of institutional investors from Gulf countries and Europe, led by Jada Fund of Funds, a subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Venture Capital.

TVM Capital Healthcare is also raising a separate Southeast Asia fund with a target size of $150 million to $200 million. The new fund, which has commitments from two lead investors from the Middle East, is expected to have its initial closing, the first time that investors commit to making their investment in the fund, by the end of this year, the South China Morning Post reported.