Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, sees China as vital to its future business growth.

Speaking at the China Development Forum 2024 in Beijing on Sunday, Aramco President and CEO Amin H. Nasser cited data showing that demand for oil will continue to be robust in the world’s No. 2 economy.

He also pointed to joint interests in renewable energy and materials manufacturing. “We are not mere investors, and China is not just a market to us,” Nasser said. “We want to be a partner of first resort in China’s economic development journey, as new opportunities clearly come into focus.”

On Monday, the Saudi Ports Authority announced a new shipping route connecting Damman, the center of the kingdom’s oil industry, to ports in Shanghai, Xiamen, Dachan Bay and Qingdau in China.

Less than a month after Lucid’s CEO said the electric car start-up must not rely on the “bottomless wealth” of Saudi Arabia, its biggest backer, the company is raising capital from an affiliate of the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Shares in Lucid jumped 8% on the news that Ayar Third Investment Co. will buy $1 billion worth of stock amid lower-than-expected demand for luxury EVs. 

The PIF, which has a 60% stake in Lucid, opened a factory in the kingdom last year and has poured billions into the California company as it looks to become a significant regional manufacturer.

Saudi Arabia expects 30% of car sales to be EVs by 2030, but faces consumer hurdles since the price of gas in the kingdom is subsidized and less than 1% of current passenger car sales are electric. 

When the new Lucid plant opened last September, outside the western port city of Jeddah, the initial plan called for assembling 5,000 EVs a year with an eventual target of an annual 155,000 vehicles exported from the kingdom.

Such output would be a major leap for Lucid, which expects to make 9,000 cars in 2024. By comparison, Elon Musk’s Tesla sent almost 1.4 million cars off its assembly lines in the U.S., Germany and China in 2022. 

A new report from the UAE Embassy in Washington sheds light on cooperation between the two countries in artificial intelligence.

Generating billions in investment dollars around the globe, AI has become a foundational technology for the UAE’s economic diversification efforts.

Partnerships with some of the biggest American institutions in technology and science, including Microsoft, Nvidia, IBM and NASA, are critical to those efforts, according to the embassy. 

“Moving from oil to data, from sand to space, from commodities to ‘compute’ – the UAE is rapidly remaking its economy and racing into the future,” Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE Ambassador to the U.S., writes in the opening letter of the white paper. “The United States is the UAE’s most important partner in this transformation.”

The report notes collaboration between the two governments on common policy that protects intellectual property (IP) and data and allows for commercial partnerships.

Regulators in both countries have consistently cleared UAE-U.S. investments and commercial partnerships in areas such as semiconductors, advanced computing, genomics and AI, according to the report.

A California-based AI startup, Anthropic, is reportedly in talks with Mubadala for a stake worth more than $1 billion in the OpenAI challenger. A company executive said it has ruled out taking money from Saudi Arabia, citing national security issues, CNBC reports. 

The Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant’s Unit 4 facility has been connected to the UAE power grid and is now months away from full operation as it finishes testing.

When the final examination phase is completed, Barakah’s Unit 4 is expected to contribute 1,400 megawatts to the country’s non-carbon energy capacity and 25% of the country’s electricity needs for the next 60 years.

Commercial operations at Barakah’s Unit 1 started in April 2021.

Abu Dhabi’s surveillance and space technology company Bayanat is planning to provide internet services in India under a joint venture with Mountain View, Calif.-based UAVOS, a developer and manufacturer of advanced unmanned systems.

The JV, called Mira Aerospace, will partner with VEDA Aeronautics, an Indian aerospace and defense company to deliver High Altitude Pseudo Satellites (HAPS).

HAPS are a kind of high-flying drone and a relatively new competitor to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites for providing telecom services.

Bayanat is set to merge with Abu Dhabi’s Yahsat later this year, creating a $4 billion enterprise with Mubadala Investment Co, G42 and International Holding Co., its largest shareholders.

Parallel shareholder meetings are set for April 25 to vote on the proposed merger. 

Abu Dhabi’s largest listed company, International Holding Co., is planning to hold an IPO next year for its new 2PointZero subsidiary, IHC’s CEO Syed Basar Shuebis said in a Bloomberg interview.

Shuebis put the value of the firm, which has interests ranging from financial services to mining, at “north of 100 billion dirhams ($27 billion).”

IHC, which is listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, a brother of the UAE’s President and the country’s National Security Adviser.

Mariam Almheiri, the UAE’s former Minister of Climate Change and Environment, was named as 2PointZero’s CEO earlier this year. 

True Gamers is looking to up the ante on the business of video games in the Gulf.

The UAE-based gaming lounge and arena developer announced plans today for a $280 million gaming island in the Al Seef area of Abu Dhabi, providing a first-of-its-kind destination for pros and hobbyists of Fortnite, Counter-Strike and League of Legends. 

The startup says it’s working with undisclosed investors for funding and discussions with developers are in the works.

True Gamers envisages a gaming-themed hotel, eSports camps for kids and a dedicated residence for professional players to prepare for major tournaments with healthy food, personal space and gaming equipment. 

True Gamers was founded in 2019 and has 124 gaming halls in the UAE and Eastern Europe. Earlier this year, the company signed an agreement to open 150 clubs in Saudi Arabia with an investment of $45 million and a franchise deal with Saudi entrepreneur Nawaf Al-Bishri.

The demographics in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are supportive of the gaming push, where people skew younger and the pastime is wildly popular. Nearly half of the people in the UAE are under 35 and in the kingdom, it’s 70%.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 38, is said to be a big Call of Duty fan. The Public Investment Fund, which he chairs, has earmarked $38 billion for an ambitious plan to attract 250 gaming companies and studios and create 39,000 video game-related jobs in the process, building its credentials in the e-arena with investments in the biggest players like Tencent, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft.

As Saudi Arabia seeks to reduce its economic dependence on oil, the kingdom has rolled out a $182 million package of grants aimed at encouraging mining companies to explore for new mineral resources.

The incentive program was announced on Wednesday by the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources and the Ministry of Investment.

Close to 50 minerals have been identified in the kingdom, including marble, granite and gold as well as ones crucial to the energy transition like copper and bauxite.

Saudi Arabia has an estimated mineral wealth of $2.5 trillion and is seeking to attract nearly $200 billion in investments in the mining sector by 2030.