Saudi developer Red Sea Global plans to launch its first overseas project in Italy, marking a major step in the company’s expansion beyond its luxury resorts along Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast.

Backed by the Public Investment Fund, RSG has been central to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 strategy to diversify the Saudi economy through high-end tourism.

“Our ambitions are beyond just the Saudi Arabian market,” CEO John Pagano said at the Reuters Next conference in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. “That’s done, done, done, done.” 

Pagano said that since its inception seven years ago, the company has awarded about 18,000 contracts for its domestic developments and plans to open 17 more resorts in Saudi Arabia by May 2026. The Italy project, for which Pagano provided few details, will build on RSG’s sustainability-focused model and is intended as a springboard for further international ventures in Europe and beyond.

In Paris, meanwhile, Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Farhan, the Saudi Minister of Culture and Governor of the Royal Commission for AlUla, met on Wednesday with French Culture Minister Rachida Dati. The two announced plans to create a Saudi section in the refurbished Pompidou Center, which is set to reopen in 2030. Under the agreement, Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission for AlUla will contribute $58 million to support the museum’s renovation.

The partnership builds on broader Saudi-French collaboration to develop the Museum of Contemporary Art in AlUla, an ancient desert city in Saudi Arabia and UNESCO Heritage Site. A joint program running through 2030 will highlight modern and contemporary Saudi artists while encouraging collaboration between cultural professionals in both countries.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appears to be getting ready for his first White House visit since 2018.

Discussions with U.S. President Donald Trump at the planned Nov. 17-18 meeting are likely to cover a much-sought defense cooperation pact with the U.S., arms purchases, Gaza reconstruction and possible normalization with Israel.

That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and other U.S. media, which cited unidentified sources. No confirmation so far from the Saudi Royal Court or the White House.

The proposed security agreement would expand weapons sales, intelligence sharing and coordination against Iran and terrorist groups, the Journal said.

Trump, who last month brokered a cease-fire to end Israel’s two-year war in Gaza, has publicly predicted that Saudi Arabia will soon join the Abraham Accords.

The visit recalls Prince Mohammed’s 2018 trip to Washington, when Trump hosted him at the White House and touted the potential for tens of billions of dollars in Saudi purchases of American arms.

That visit – part of a tour that included meetings with U.S. technology and defense executives – came before the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents that nearly ruptured relations between the two countries.

Trump, who visited Riyadh in May on a swing through the Gulf that included the UAE and Qatar, also attended the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s FII Priority summit in Miami in February, where he praised the kingdom’s growing investments in the U.S.

Marquee events such as the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and Abu Dhabi’s F1 Grand Prix have helped establish Gulf countries as major-league hosts of global tournaments. 

Now they stand to capture a significant share of the global sports tourism market, which is predicted to reach $2 trillion by 2030, according to a Middle East report published by PwC.

Gulf countries have an opportunity to convert their hosting success into a long-term driver of economic growth by building experience-led destinations, immersive fan journeys and a connected regional ecosystem that keeps fans returning throughout the year, the report found.

Sports tourism accounts for about 10% of global tourism spend, but the Gulf region currently only captures about 5-7% of that, leaving room for growth.

Saudi Arabia’s massive investment in sports, largely orchestrated through the Public Investment Fund, is paying off, with the kingdom’s sports market expected to triple to $22.4 billion by 2030, adding $13.3 billion to its GDP.


Global Islamic finance assets are projected to soar by more than 60% over the next four years to $9.7 trillion, driven by gains in banking, bonds and insurance markets.

According to a study by the London Stock Exchange and the Islamic Corp. for the Development of the Private Sector, the sector has been growing by an average 10% annual rate, Arab News reports.

The report says Iran, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia together hold roughly $4.3 trillion in Islamic finance assets, or about 72% of the total.

It says the U.K. has emerged as a key hub for Islamic finance, particularly in the sale of sustainable sukuk bonds.

Construction of the multibillion-dollar Stargate UAE AI project is progressing at a pace that might be considered impossible outside of the Gulf region and is surprising even for the Emirates’ warp-speed developers.

Abu Dhabi’s G42 tech company shared a time-lapse video on Thursday of the construction site for the initial 1GW infrastructure cluster, which will be a cornerstone of the 5GW UAE-U.S. AI Campus. The clip shows huge concrete foundations, more than half a dozen cranes and some of the 3,500 workers who have been deployed to the site. The full build-out of the 1GW cluster, overseen by G42 subsidiary Khazna Data Centers, is expected to take three years.

Stargate UAE is being built by G42 in partnership with Nvidia, OpenAI, Cisco, Oracle and SoftBank, following a deal made during U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to the Emirates in May.

Just three months ago, the entire site was covered in a 40-foot-high sand dune, Khazna Data Centers Vice President for Special Projects Gareth Dennison said during a panel discussion at Gitex Global 2025. “It’s a huge achievement,” he said, “If it could happen, it could only happen in the UAE.

”Also speaking at Gitex, Khazna CEO Hassan Al Naqbi said the company was working on the first phase of a five-phase cluster. “Just to give you a sense of size – this project spans about 10 square miles of land dedicated entirely to building not just a data centre, but an entire AI ecosystem,” he said.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a gigantic development alongside the Grand Mosque in Mecca that aims to almost double the holy city’s capacity to host Muslim pilgrims coming from around the world.

The new plan, introduced by the Saudi leader on Wednesday as the King Salman Gate project, is part of a broader push to modernize Mecca’s municipal services and accommodate 30 million visitors annually by 2030, up from about 18 million last year.

The development will span nearly a quarter the size of Manhattan, covering 12 million square meters of space (130 million square feet). Managed by RUA AlHaram AlMakki Co., a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the project will include residential towers, hotels and retail space in addition to worship areas. 

The real estate surrounding Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina has become a magnet for hotel chains, developers and apartment owners, drawn by the guaranteed demand that comes from the religious obligation of Hajj. High-end lodging and property rentals in the surrounding districts have produced strong returns, encouraging more private and institutional participation.

Saudi authorities are also updating regulations to open parts of Mecca and Medina to additional foreign capital. While special restrictions will remain for property ownership in the holy cities, broader reforms in Riyadh and Jeddah are designed to attract outside investors and integrate the religious tourism sector into the kingdom’s diversification plans.

While IBM, Deloitte and Cisco touted AI deals on Day 3 of Gitex Global 2025 in Dubai, rap entrepreneur Sean “Jay-Z” Carter sat down in Abu Dhabi with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed – gatekeeper of the UAE’s trillion-dollar investment funds – to talk about the music business’s tech horizons.

Sheikh Tahnoon, the UAE National Security Advisor, Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, said in an Instagram post on Wednesday that he talked with Carter, Chairman of Roc Nation, about “technological transformations driven by artificial intelligence” as well as “strengthening the emirate’s position as a leading global destination for culture, creativity, tourism, and entertainment.”

Also sitting down with Sheikh Tahnoon were Jay Brown, Vice Chairman of  Beverly Hill private equity fund MarcyPen Capital Partners; Elbert O’Neal Robinson Jr., CEO of the fund; and UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba.

Back in Dubai, executives from the 6,800 international companies present at GITEX jostled amid the crowds to negotiate deals, including a partnership to help companies in the Middle East adopt AI faster by combining IBM’s technology with Deloitte’s regional consulting expertise. Cisco, meanwhile, unveiled its “Make AI Work for You” program tailored for the region to simplify AI infrastructure and strengthen security.

Headlining GITEX on Tuesday was Sam Altman, founder and CEO of OpenAI, who appeared virtually in Dubai in a discussion with Peng Xiao, CEO of Abu Dhabi’s tech powerhouse G42, sitting onstage.

“Cooperation is key – no company or country can reach the full potential of AI alone,” Altman said. “We are witnessing the greatest transformation in human history. That’s why we must constantly raise our goals.”

By midday it was standing-room-only as one of the world’s biggest tech and AI gatherings kicked off.

Cramming into the exhibition halls at Dubai World Trade Center on Monday were exuberant crowds trying to get a glance of the future: from fully autonomous AI-powered cars to a pink feather-boa clad humanoid robot rubbing shoulders with its warm-blooded compatriots.

GITEX Global 2025, now in its 45th edition, and sister event Expand NorthStar, a startup and investor event running in parallel at Dubai Harbor, brought the city to a standstill early on Monday morning, prompting the police issue a notice to motorists to avoid the area if possible.

The five-day event, which has drawn more than 6,800 companies from 180 countries, is growing so big that it will be moved next year to Expo City Dubai, the futuristic site developed for Expo 2020 Dubai, which has now been transformed into a permanent city and free zone. It will also be shuffled forward into December to coincide with the cooler tourist season. 

Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid, along with his son, Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan, were seen touring exhibits with a large entourage in tow on Monday morning.

Among the major companies participating are Abu Dhabi AI powerhouse G42, Google, Microsoft, Huawei, AMD, Cerebras, Qualcomm, and Tenstorrent.

Hassan Aljohani, the Vice President for Business Development at Saudi Arabia’s Neo Space Group, came to the event to show off the company’s near real-time geospatial intelligence and a sovereign mapping platform to the wider region.

“We see GITEX as the ultimate platform to showcase and establish familiarity, connections and partnerships with the like-minded innovative institutions,” Aljohani said.