WASHINGTON – Last month, at two newly minted military facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia, US and Royal Saudi air defense units teamed up for live-fire drills to shoot down a series of training drones mimicking the speed and altitude of a variety of Iranian attack UAVs. In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, Army Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla, the top commander of US forces in the Middle East, described the first Red Sands counter-drone experimentation exercise as "very successful." But not everything went smoothly -- and that was the point. One Saudi-owned defense system proved unable to engage at the necessary range, forcing soldiers to improvise. Other weapons hit the targets successfully, including LIDS (Low, Slow, Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat System) and Coyote counter-drone systems brought in by the US Army.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was declared as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) after it was first discovered in Wuhan, China [1]. Over one year, the virus has infected more than 68 million people worldwide [2]. The virus can be fatal for elderly people or ones with chronic diseases [3]. Different countries across the globe have imposed several social practices and strategies to reduce the spread of the infection and to ensure the well-being of the residents. These practices and strategies include but are not limited to social distancing, restricted and authorized travels, remote work and education, reduced working staff in organizations, and frequent COVID-19 tests. These measures have been proved potential in reducing the disease spread and death in the previous pandemics [3], [4]. Several studies have focused on machine learning time series models to forecast the number of COVID-19 infections in different countries [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]. This is to aid the government in designing and regulating efficient virus spread-mitigating strategies and to enable healthcare organizations for effective planning of health personnel and facilities resources. Based on the forecasted infections, the government can either make the confinement laws stricter or can ease them.

The second edition of the Global AI Summit kicked off Tuesday morning in the Saudi capital Riyadh, bringing together various stakeholders and academics to discuss the future of artificial intelligence and the Kingdom's contribution to this field. Over 200 speakers representing 90 countries have come together for the global summit that will run until September 15 at the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center and under the patronage of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Global AI Summit, organized by Saudi Data & AI Authority (SDAIA), will touch on topics such as the impact of AI on the public and private sectors, healthcare, environment, transportation, smart cities and culture among other matters. For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app. SDAIA said on its website that "tech companies, startups, investors, and entrepreneurs [will] meet at the Global AI Summit to shape the future of AI." Speaking at the opening ceremony of the summit, Saudi Minister of Communications & Information Technology Abdullah Alswaha said that Saudi Arabia "has become the largest tech force of coders and data scientists," adding that there are currently more than 70,000 trainees in this field.

Hong Kong-based drug discovery and development company Insilico has secured fresh capital at a time that its CEO described as a "biotech winter." The firm has raised $35 million on the heels of its last tranche in June, bringing its total Series D investment to $95 million. The new round was "oversubscribed", the firm's founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov told TechCrunch, declining to disclose the company's valuation. Prosperity7, the venture capital arm of Saudi Arabia's state oil company Aramco, led the new capital infusion. The fund has been actively scouring for opportunities in and around China that can scale globally and particularly in the Middle East.

Today Insilico Medicine announced the completion of a second closing of its Series D round, led by Prosperity7 Ventures, the diversified growth fund of Saudi Aramco Ventures, bringing the total Series D financing to $95 million. Other global investors with expertise in the biopharmaceutical and life sciences sectors also participated. The financing brought in Prosperity7 as a new investor, alongside current investors in the Series D round, including a large, diversified asset management firm on the US West Coast, B Capital Group, Warburg Pincus, BHR Partners, Qiming Venture Partners, Deerfield, Pavilion Capital, BOLD Capital Partners, and WS Investment Company. Insilico's founder and CEO, Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, also invested in the Series D round. Insilico Medicine plans to grow its presence in Saudi Arabia, building on the recent investment from Prosperity7.

Jaka Robotics, a Chinese startup that makes collaborative robots, has just pulled in a hefty Series D funding round of over $150 million from a lineup of heavyweight investors to help it expand globally. The round is led by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek, TrueLight Capital, Softbank Vision Fund II, and Prosperity7 Ventures, a growth fund under Aramco Ventures, which is an investment subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's state oil firm Aramco. Collaborative robots, known as "cobots", are meant to work alongside humans rather than in isolation. Based out of Shanghai and Beijing, Jaka's robotic arms can augment humans in a range of tasks, from assembling electronic parts, pouring from a coffee machine to packaging smartphones. Jaka plans to spend its fresh funding on R&D and global expansion, which makes Prosperity7's investment all the more significant.

Lillian Pierson is a CEO & data leader that supports data professionals to evolve into world-class leaders & entrepreneurs. To date, she's helped educate over 1.3 million data professionals on AI and data science. Lillian has authored 6 data books with Wiley & Sons Publishers as well as 8 data courses with LinkedIn Learning. She's supported a wide variety of organizations across the globe, from the United Nations and National Geographic, to Ericsson and Saudi Aramco, and everything in between. She is a licensed Professional Engineer, in good standing.

Saudi's state-owned oil company announced today its plan to support artificial intelligence (AI) research in the kingdom. Aramco signed a memorandum of understanding with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology north of Jeddah to create a new research center for AI at the educational institution. The center will focus on research, development and marketing of AI technologies, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. The center will "provide a joint framework for working with Saudi Aramco in a close way to develop proper and quick solutions for the needs of the energy sector, among other relevant sectors," said university vice president Donal Bradley. Why it matters: Saudi Arabia is seeking to diversify its economy and rely less on oil as per the Vision 2030 initiative. The kingdom has had some success in this regard.

Energy giant Saudi Aramco says its 2021 net profit soared by more than 120 percent due to higher crude oil prices, as global economic growth recovered from a pandemic induced downturn. The announcement came on Sunday hours after Yemen's Houthi rebels – against whom Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition – targeted several locations, including Aramco facilities, in cross-border armed drone attacks. Aramco, Saudi Arabia's cash cow, did not say if the attacks caused any damage. "Aramco's net income increased by 124 percent to $110bn in 2021, compared to $49bn in 2020," the company said in a statement. Aramco achieved a net income of $88.2bn in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic hit global markets, resulting in huge losses for the oil and aviation sectors, among others.

RIYADH, March 9, 2022 – Pasqal, a developer of neutral atom-based quantum technology, and ARAMCO announced the signing of an MoU to collaborate on quantum computing capabilities and applications in the energy sector. Objectives include accelerating the design and development of quantum based machine learning models as well as identifying and advancing other use cases for the technology across the Saudi Aramco value chain. To that end, both companies plan to explore ways for collaborating and cultivating the quantum information sciences ecosystem in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Quantum computing can be used to address a wide range of upstream, midstream and downstream challenges in the oil and gas industry including network optimization and management, reaction network generation and refinery linear programming. The collaboration will explore potential applications for quantum computing and artificial intelligence in these areas as well.