Riyadh, Dubai top spenders for smart city development in GCC

Riyadh and Dubai are the top spenders in the GCC when it comes to the development of smart cities, Saudi Gazette reported on Wednesday, citing Dr Samer Abdallah, head of digital at KPMG Al Fozan & Partners in Saudi Arabia.

“Given the Saudi government’s move to embrace digital transformation in alignment with Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020, information technology (IT) spending in the Kingdom is slated to grow by at least 14 percent each year,” he said while addressing the Digital Saudi 2030 conference in Riyadh.

“As Saudi Arabia makes great strides to build a sophisticated digital infrastructure under its Vision 2030, cloud computing will be a catalyst for digital transformation,” he added.

Cloud computing will play a key role in promoting Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) as these technologies are adopted across the broader business spectrum, he pointed out, emphasizing that companies will increasingly use AI-based cyber defense systems to detect and fend off any cyber-attacks.

“Data analytics is becoming increasingly important tool for businesses, particularly business intelligence, as modern business problems require the analysis of large and complex combinations of data sources and sophisticated data models,” Dr Abdallah concluded.