NEW YORK: Nadin bin Hamza Al-Awfi, second secretary and member of Saudi Arabia’s permanent mission to the UN, delivered a speech to highlight her government’s efforts in eradicating poverty and supporting development around the world.
Al-Awfi conveyed the Saudi delegation’s approval of the statement delivered by Palestine, on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.
She noted that achieving development and eradicating poverty are moral and human imperatives, and given the many challenges facing developing countries, Saudi Arabia attaches great importance to development issues.
Al-Awfi added that her country is a leader in prompt responses to all nations around the world, which made it among the world’s major donors. The Kingdom has assisted poor countries through supporting the establishment of the Islamic Development Bank’s fund to address poverty problems, and donated over $1 billion.
She noted that Saudi Arabia’s efforts are not only limited to assisting poor countries, but international institutions and organizations specialized in anti-poverty programs, such as several UN offices and the World Food Programme.
Al-Awfi said that the Kingdom has provided over $100 billion over the past three decades, where it ranked second in the list of the world’s remittance-sending countries.
She said: “The international community must carry out its responsibilities by joining efforts and dealing with the development of women and eradication of poverty as top priorities.”
Al-Awfi added: “The world celebrated the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The Kingdom reiterates that development is not possible without achieving international community cooperation, world peace, equality, international legitimacy, committing to international law and resolving conflicts peacefully and diplomatically.”
International community must carry out joint efforts to eradicate poverty, says Saudi diplomat
International community must carry out joint efforts to eradicate poverty, says Saudi diplomat
- Al-Awfi: Saudi Arabia has provided over $100 billion over the past three decades, where it ranked second in the list of the world’s remittance-sending countries
Leading AI company to partner with Saudi Arabia, CEO tells Arab News
- Argentum’s Andrew Sobko: ‘Very easy’ to build new infrastructure, data centers in Kingdom
- In 2024, Saudi Arabia announced $100bn plan to establish AI hub
CHICAGO: The founder and CEO of Argentum AI, one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies, has told Arab News that he is looking forward to partnering with Saudi Arabia.
Ukrainian-born Andrew Sobko, based in Chicago, said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has made a significant commitment to AI use.
In 2024, Saudi Arabia announced a $100 billion plan under Vision 2030 to build a hub to develop technology and data centers to handle a significant portion of the world’s AI workload.
The Kingdom reportedly expects AI to contribute more than $135.2 billion to its gross domestic product by 2030, representing roughly 12.4 percent of its economy.
“The US still is the kind of core leader of this AI innovation, development and infrastructure, but we quickly realized that Saudi Arabia sees this as an important asset class, not just as an innovation,” Sobko said.
“They’re deploying tons of capital. If you try to build some new infrastructure or data center, it’s very easy to do it in Saudi Arabia,” he added. “Saudi Arabia realizes and sees this compute as almost like a second asset class after oil.”
The term “compute” refers to the process of calculations that fuels AI development and applications in everyday use.
“The Middle East wants to be one of the largest exporters of compute. They realized that a couple of years ago and they’re aggressively expanding,” Sobko said, adding that AI is being used more and more in industries such as sports, in which Saudi Arabia has invested heavily.
Argentum AI recently added Majed Al-Sorour, CEO of the Saudi Golf Federation, to its board.
“Majed is also a huge believer in AI and AI infrastructure,” said Sobko. “With the help of Majed, we’re focusing on global expansion. He’s leading charge on that.”
Sobko said the challenge is not simply recognizing the importance of AI, but the ability to power data centers that it requires, and Saudi Arabia recognizes that need.
“If you secure a significant amount of power and you have data center capacity, you can actually control this kind of compute and AI,” he added.
“And the biggest bottleneck to continue expanding as we enter into this new age of robotics industry, it needs a lot more compute.”
Following meetings with US leadership, including President Donald Trump last November, Saudi Arabia secured agreements on AI technology transfers, aiming to avoid reliance on other nations’ systems.
