Poetry, puppets and more at Jeddah culture festival

Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal will inaugurate the Cultural Garden at the Jeddah waterfront. (SPA)
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Updated 14 January 2020
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Poetry, puppets and more at Jeddah culture festival

  • Competition relies on memorizing Arabic poetry verses, and aims to link the forum to the Arab world’s poetry heritage, reviving the skill of memorizing poetry

JEDDAH: Events ranging from Andalusian poetry to puppet shows will feature at the third edition of the Cultural Garden opening in Jeddah on Sunday.
Makkah Cultural Forum’s Secretariat has agreed to stage more than 50 events, including classical Arabic in technology, plays, a photo exhibition, Arabic calligraphy classes, musical compositions, puppetry and operettas, as part of the cultural festival.
Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal will inaugurate the Cultural Garden at the Jeddah waterfront.
Mohammed Al-Masoudi, executive director of the Makkah Cultural Forum, said that 14 organizations, including Jeddah University, King Abdul Aziz University, Taif University, and the Ministry of Labor and Social Development, will participate in Cultural Garden events.

HIGHLIGHT

Makkah Cultural Forum’s Secretariat has agreed to stage more than 50 events, including classical Arabic in technology, plays, a photo exhibition, Arabic calligraphy classes, musical compositions, puppetry and operettas, as part of the cultural festival.

Taif University, which will take part on Sunday under the theme “How to be a Role Model in the Qur’an Language,” will present a play titled “Himma Shamikha.”
The university’s Academy of Arabic Poetry will present “Fasih Makkah,” a competition for poetry and prose reading in a theatrical or innovative way, and will also organize Al-Mousajala Al-Shi’riyya (“Poetry Rivalry”) in which individuals compete in poetry readings on stage.
Competition relies on memorizing Arabic poetry verses, and aims to link the forum to the Arab world’s poetry heritage, reviving the skill of memorizing poetry.
Three poetry nights featuring male and female poets from around the Kingdom will also be held to encourage talent.
The competition’s conditions, as well as the initiatives that will be held at the Cultural Garden, will be announced on the university’s Twitter account @TaifUniversity.


Leading AI company to partner with Saudi Arabia, CEO tells Arab News

Updated 8 sec ago
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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.