It bills itself as a futuristic megatropolis where residents will live in a 110-mile long skyscraper, a floating city and a high-tech mountain resort. But as we find out in this video, others fear it it is a dystopian nightmare in the making. Artificial intelligence will predict what residents need, they will by whisked around at hundreds of miles an hour by high-speed transport that hasn't even been invented yet. The Saudi Arabian city of Neom will have its own digital currency, and citizens will be constantly monitored by facial recognition cameras to manage the city's power and waste resources. And Horrifying new details are emerging about the fate of three Saudi tribesman who were this week sentenced to death for trying to object to the construction on their land.

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.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is promising to build a network of smart cities that won't have any cars or roads. It's called The Line, due to its arrangement of "hyper-connected future communities," and will form part of NEOM, a $500 billion project announced in October 2017. According to the prince, the development will offer "ultra-high-speed transit," autonomous vehicles and an urban layout that ensures basic facilities, such as schools and medical clinics, are never more than a five-minute walk away. "It is expected no journey will be longer than 20 minutes," the project's organizers claimed in a press release today. One million people are supposed to live inside The Line.

Yet another country has gone to release the potential of artificial intelligence to fuel its economic growth plans. One of the largest oil manufacturing nations, Saudi Arabia, has now formulated and launched a nation-wide policy on AI. The project has been signed with approval from King Salman and aims to add the market value of up to 500 billion riyals (US$133 billion) in the country's GDP by 2030. The policy formulation had begun last year when the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) was established through a royal decree in August 2019 to lead the charge of the nation's transformation into a data-driven economy. Besides, the body is working on implementing a cloud platform, intending to build one of the biggest cloud frameworks in the Middle East by connecting 83 data centres controlled by over 40 government bodies.

Enterprises are now facing a new reality where traditional work practices are being challenged. Organisations are looking to address business complexities and identify new patterns in consumer behaviour to survive and evolve. CIOs must leverage cutting-edge technology solutions to tackle these challenges and create new opportunities for business in a post-pandemic world. Recently, Cloud4C and Intel jointly hosted Global CIO Leadership Conclave "Future of Technology: Beyond Covid-19," a platform for the domain experts, innovators and leading industry CIOs. The conclave focused on how to harness secure and scalable cloud solutions to tide over disruption and create future-ready enterprises.

The humanoid robot'Sophia' made quite an impression back in 2017 when it was unveiled for the first time at the innovation conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Built by a Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics in 2015, the humanoid robot can mimic 62 human facial expressions. However, the highlight of the conference was not the unveiling of the AI-enabled entity or its onstage interview but the Kingdom's decision to grant citizenship to Sophia. Ironic for a country where women were not allowed to drive till last year! However, the intention was clear -- to adopt technology in modernizing the heavily Oil-dependent economy.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a collective term for computer systems that can sense their environment, think, learn, and respond to what they are sensing. Forms of AI in use today include digital assistants, chatbots and machine learning among others. Saudi Arabia is seeking to be a global leader in the application of technology related to AI. In a 2017 global study, consulting firm PWC estimated that AI could contribute $135 billion or 12.4 percent to Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 -- the second-highest share in the region after the UAE. The study saw retail and the public sector, including health care and education, as particularly ripe for transformation by AI.