By Dr. Mohanad AlShaikh

CEO, Johnson Controls Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s industrial sector continues to stretch its wings, and the recent robust performance in October is a clear signal that the Kingdom’s economic transformation is succeeding in both depth and direction. According to official data from the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, 95 new industrial licenses were issued in October 2025, representing more than SR 2.4 billion in planned investment. Meanwhile, 81 factories moved into actual production with about SR 1.3 billion in investment and nearly 2,000 new jobs created, a testament to momentum at the grassroots of the non‑oil economy.

This growth matters far beyond the numbers themselves. It shows that Saudi Arabia’s strategy to re-engineer its industrial landscape is working, not just in broad ambition, but in real factories, real jobs, and real economic impact. At the heart of this transformation is Vision 2030’s call for localization, empowered talent, and export-ready production. The idea is simple yet profound: a country that makes what it uses and exports what it makes gives its people sovereignty in their livelihoods and its economy greater resilience. Growing industrial output and factory activation are essential steps in creating a manufacturing base that can compete regionally and internationally.

I witnessed this momentum firsthand during the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources’ Standardized Incentives for the Manufacturing Sector event recently in Riyadh, where an official signing ceremony was held to award incentives to select manufacturers. Johnson Controls Arabia was honored to be among the recipients, with a project focused on localizing production of advanced water-cooled centrifugal chillers.

His Excellency Bandar Alkhorayef, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, opened the event by announcing that SR 2 billion has been earmarked to support new and expanding factories across the Kingdom. His speech was followed by mine, where I shared a belief deeply held across our company:

“A country that manufactures is a country that holds its destiny in its own hands.”

This vision is moving from words to implementation and the results are visible not only in industrial licensing and factory activation but also in trade performance. Saudi Arabia’s non-oil exports reached a record SAR 307 billion in the first half of 2025, marking the highest level in the Kingdom’s history. This achievement underscores the link between industrial growth and global competitiveness: every new factory and every localized product strengthen the Kingdom’s ability to compete internationally.

Localization is a foundation for scale, quality, and global relevance, never a move toward isolation. A product labeled “Made in Saudi” becomes more than an economic input. It becomes a statement of national capability. The ability to export high-value, high-quality Saudi products is essential to the Kingdom’s ambitions to expand its role among the world’s industrial powers.

As the Kingdom sets its sights on elevating its global industrial standing, this kind of growth and investment is not just a metric of success, it’s a strategic necessity. Industrialization supports diversification, anchors value chains, and enables the very sovereignty that Vision 2030 envisions.

When factories expand, licenses multiply, and production lines hum with activity, we witness a nation accelerating toward a future it is building with its own hands.

Noha Gad

Emerging technologies are reshaping the future of agriculture and farming in the Middle East. Advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision, and IoT-powered sensors, are pivotal in transforming crop scanning speeds and harvest precision, addressing challenges including water scarcity, labor shortages, and arid conditions. In Saudi Arabia, autonomous farming robots are used to sow, fertilize, and apply pesticides in a single pass, enabling round-the-clock operations while cutting labor costs, aligning with Vision 2030's push for innovation.

Farming in the Kingdom is becoming more efficient and sustainable than ever before, thanks to AI-powered technologies. For instance, predictive systems could help farmers avert up to 30% of crop losses due to pests and disease before an outbreak goes out of control, according to a report released by Tanmeya Capital. In high-tech farms, AI-powered robots have increased harvesting efficiency by 50% and broader AI-driven automation has reduced labor costs by up to 35%, addressing the Kingdom’s labor shortages and rising operational expenses.

The agricultural autonomous robots market in Saudi Arabia is seeing significant growth, triggered by the urgent need for enhancing agricultural productivity and sustainability. According to recent estimates released by Mobility Foresight, one of the global market research firms specializing in mobility and tech domains, the market size is valued at nearly $100 million and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 20% over the next five years. In 2028, the Saudi market is anticipated to hit $250 million, driven by the integration of AI and machine learning into agricultural robots, which will ultimately enhance their capabilities, making them indispensable for modern farming operations. 

This growth will be fueled by increasing investments in agricultural technology (agri-tech), and the adoption of innovative farming practices will play a vital role in ensuring food security and economic diversification.

The increasing amount of data generated by autonomous systems paves the way for developing analytics platforms that help farmers make informed decisions based on real-time data. Additionally, supporting startups and companies that focus on innovative solutions in the agri-tech space can yield high returns, especially those that integrate robotics and automation into farming practices.

How autonomous robots revolutionize agriculture and farming in Saudi Arabia

Various types of autonomous robots transform agriculture and farming in Saudi Arabia. For example, drones are used for aerial monitoring, crop spraying, and data collection, while harvesting robots can identify ripe crops and harvest them with precision. IoT-powered sensors can also monitor soil health and nutrient levels, providing valuable data for farmers. Additionally, automated tractors can carry out planting, tilling, and other field operations without human intervention. The use of autonomous robots in agriculture is expected to revolutionize traditional farming methods, leading to sustainable practices, improved crop management, and higher productivity. 

One of the key benefits of integrating smart robotics in agriculture is that it targets labor-intensive tasks, like planting, harvesting, and monitoring, using AI, sensors, and drones to enhance precision in arid conditions. For planting automation, autonomous robots plant seeds at optimal depth and spacing, applying fertilizers and pesticides precisely during sowing, which reduces waste and frees farmers for strategic tasks. They operate 24/7 and adapt to soil data for uniform crop establishment, especially vital in Saudi Arabia's vast farmlands. Robotic harvesters use high-precision visual sensors to identify ripe fruit, navigate trees, and pick without damage, operating continuously to increase output. 

Earlier this year, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) developed a new robotic system designed to automate date palm harvesting, aiming to disrupt the agriculture industry and position Saudi Arabia as a leader in agriculture innovation.  The project, headed by KAUST Assistant Prof. Shinkyu Park, focused on automating critical tasks in date palm cultivation, including harvesting, pollination, and tree maintenance. By integrating robotics with AI, the project is expected to improve efficiency and deliver higher yields of more nutritious dates, fulfilling the need to modernize and automate traditional practices in the date palm industry in the Kingdom.

Crop monitoring drones with cameras and sensors fly over fields to detect pests, diseases, and health issues early, enabling rapid interventions and minimizing losses. Meanwhile, autonomous ground robots are used to analyze soil for nutrients, pH, and moisture, recommending precise fertilizer applications to maximize yields without excess. This data-driven approach enhances soil health in the long term, reducing costs and promoting efficient resource use in Saudi farms.

For Saudi farmers, agricultural robotics can deliver substantial benefits by tackling core challenges, such as water scarcity, labor shortages, and low productivity in arid environments, ultimately advancing food security under Vision 2030. This includes:

• Reducing costs and labor expenses by automating repetitive tasks.
• Conserving water by utilizing precision irrigation systems from robots to deliver water where needed.
• Improving yields through AI-powered monitoring and harvesting.
• Reducing chemical runoff through targeted spraying, which contributes to protecting soil and biodiversity while complying with the Saudi's green initiatives. 

Humans and agricultural robotics

The transition from traditional farming to smart agriculture demands a fundamental shift in the skills base, creating both a challenge of displacement and an unprecedented opportunity for new, high-value employment. 

The automation of repetitive, labor-intensive tasks will inevitably reduce demand for low-skilled seasonal labor. While addressing labor shortages, this shift creates a pressing social and economic imperative: the need for large-scale reskilling and upskilling of the existing agricultural workforce. Government, tech providers, and institutions could offer certified, hands-on training modules, ensuring the current farming community has the required digital literacy to deal with innovations such as tablet-based control systems, dashboards, and software platforms. Therefore, new high-tech agri-tech professions will emerge, redefining what it means to work in agriculture. The sector will no longer employ farmers, but a suite of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals, data analysts, drone operators, agronomy pilots, agricultural robot fleet managers, and agri-tech support technicians.

Finally, the landscape of agricultural autonomous robots in Saudi Arabia is highly competitive and rapidly evolving, driven by a combination of local startups and established global players who develop innovative solutions tailored to the Kingdom’s unique agricultural challenges. By focusing on advanced technologies, like AI, machine learning, and robotics, these companies play a crucial role in creating efficient systems for harvesting, monitoring, and managing crops.

The successful integration of autonomous farming in Saudi Arabia will be measured not only in yield increases and water savings but also in its transition for the workforce. By investing heavily in reskilling programs for today's farmers, the Kingdom can ensure its agricultural revolution builds human capital alongside technological capital. 

Noha Gad

Traditional top-down models often struggle to scale amid economic uncertainties in today’s fast-evolving startup landscape; hence, the shift towards community-driven startups gained significant momentum. This transformative model redefines success by democratizing the creation process, empowering users not just as buyers but as active participants to co-shape products, amplify voices, and propel growth through authentic connections and collective energy.

While traditional startups often launch polished products into a silent vacuum, community-driven ventures build their roadmap out in the open, alongside their first users.

Community-driven startups heavily rely on their user base who actively participate in shaping the product, culture, and growth trajectory, rather than serving as mere end-users. These startups build platforms or services centered on fostering closed networks of enthusiasts who contribute ideas, content, feedback, and even governance. Unlike passive consumer applications, community-driven startups prioritize ongoing collaboration, including think forums for feature requests, user-generated templates, or member-led events that evolve the offering organically. 

Community-driven vs. Traditional startups

Traditional startups follow a top-down blueprint where founders design a product in isolation, launch via paid ads or influencers, and iterate based on metrics such as acquisition cost. Unlike traditional models, where users act as passive consumers reliant on marketing budgets and virality hacks for growth, community-driven approaches make users co-creators and advocates through real-time forums, beta testing, and organic referrals. This model can increase the community engagement rate fivefold as users feel ownership, eventually reducing churn and boosting lifetime value.

How to build a strategy as a community-driven startup

Community-driven startups employ strategic steps to cultivate engaged user bases that propel product evolution and sustainable growth. 

• Clarify the community’s purpose. Identify ideal members through persona research via surveys or outreach on platforms, then choose accessible channels and launch with a small group of 50-100 founding members recruited personally. Hosting weekly events like AMAs (Ask Me Anything), polls, or feedback sessions will help ignite participation and build trust through visible responsiveness.
• Encourage contributions early with low-friction tools, such as dedicated forums for feature ideas, user-generated content templates, or beta testing invites. Recognizing active members via shoutouts, badges, exclusive access, or revenue-sharing perks will foster a sense of ownership and culture.
• Expand tactics via referrals and incentives. Introduce scalable events such as mentorship circles, expert webinars, or hackathons to deepen connections without diluting intimacy. Integrate feedback loops continuously to ensure that growth aligns with community needs rather than vanity metrics.
• Achieve long-term sustainability. Survey members regularly, refine based on data, and foster network effects through peer connections and ambassador programs. This would help startups adapt to changing dynamics and cultivate sub-communities for specialized interests to prevent stagnation.

Key benefits

Community-driven startups deliver remarkable advantages by embedding users as core stakeholders, transforming potential costs into self-reinforcing growth engines. Engaged communities foster deep ownership, yielding up to 5x higher retention rates compared to traditional models. Additionally, crowdsourced feedback loops accelerate innovation and help startups minimize product development cycles, while ensuring relevance and delighting early adopters with tailored features.

Loyal members promote the startup through personal referrals and recommendations, which greatly reduce the cost of gaining new customers. Thus, startups will no longer need to launch expensive advertising campaigns, relying on members who naturally increase reach and create network effects that add value with each new member.

Community-based startups are more likely to handle economic challenges among passionate communities that offer stability through ongoing participation. This promotes users’ loyalty and makes them a strong defense against competitors who rely on short-lived trends.

While traditional models focus on isolated polish and paid reach, community-driven startups unlock a more resilient path: turning users into passionate partners who co-build products and fuel growth. This shift significantly redefines how startups grow by prioritizing purpose over polish and collaboration over campaigns, ultimately enabling founders to cultivate not only a wide user base but also a vested community that innovates, retains, and defends together.

Ghada Ismail

For years, the startup world celebrated unicorns—private companies valued at more than $1 billion—as the ultimate success story. Over time, valuations grew, capital became more available, and expectations shifted. This gave rise to decacorns, companies worth over $10 billion.

Now, a much rarer group sits at the very top: hectocorns.

A hectocorn is a company valued at $100 billion or more. The word comes from “hecto,” meaning one hundred, and it describes businesses that have reached an extraordinary level of size and influence. These companies are not just growing fast; they are powerful enough to shape markets and industries.

How rare are hectocorns?

Hectocorns are extremely rare. While there are hundreds of unicorns around the world, only a small number of companies ever reach a $100 billion valuation.

Most hectocorns are global giants that dominate their sectors. Examples often include Apple, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Amazon, and Nvidia. Their valuations are so large that they are sometimes compared to the economies of entire countries.

What makes a hectocorn different?

The difference between a $10 billion company and a $100 billion company is not just an extra zero. Hectocorns usually share a few clear characteristics.

They tend to:

• Operate at a global scale, not just in one market
• Serve hundreds of millions, or even billions, of users
• Offer products or services that people and businesses rely on every day

At this level, competition is no longer only about building a better product. It becomes about managing scale, regulations, supply chains, and long-term strategy.

Are there private hectocorns?

Most hectocorns are public companies, meaning they are listed on stock exchanges. Staying private while reaching a $100 billion valuation is very rare.

To do this, a company would need to:

• Dominate a very large global market
• Earn exceptional trust from investors
• Maintain strong growth without public market support

Companies like ByteDance are often mentioned as rare private firms that come close, depending on market conditions. Still, private hectocorns are the exception, not the rule.

Will we see more hectocorns?

As technology, artificial intelligence, and emerging markets continue to grow, more hectocorns will likely appear, but slowly, as reaching a $100 billion valuation requires:

• Long-term resilience
• Global relevance
• The ability to survive multiple economic cycles

Wrapping Things Up…

In simple terms, hectocorns represent the very top of the global business pyramid. They are not defined by rapid growth alone, but by long-term scale, resilience, and influence. While unicorns capture attention and decacorns signal ambition, hectocorns show what happens when a company becomes deeply embedded in the global economy. For most founders, reaching this level is not the goal, but understanding how hectocorns are built helps clarify where real power, value, and impact ultimately concentrate.

Ghada Ismail

For years, Arabic speakers learned how to work around technology rather than with it. We typed in Arabic on apps clearly designed for English. We tolerated clumsy translations, broken layouts, and features that only half-worked once the language was switched. Somewhere along the way, adapting became normal.

That normalization is now being challenged.

Across Saudi Arabia and the wider Arab world, a growing number of startups are doing something deceptively simple but strategically powerful: they are building with Arabic in mind from the very beginning. Not as a translation layer.  But as a core product decision.

These companies are part of a quiet but meaningful shift toward what can be described as Arabic-first startups: ventures that treat language as identity, interface, and competitive advantage all at once.

A Digitally Active Region With a Lingual Gap

The timing of this shift is not accidental. Digital adoption across the Arab world has reached scale. More than 348 million people in the region are now internet users, representing roughly 70 percent of the population. Social media usage is equally significant, with over 228 million active users engaging daily across platforms.

Yet despite this scale, Arabic remains underrepresented online. While it is one of the most widely spoken languages globally, Arabic accounts for only a small fraction of digital content on the web. The result is a persistent mismatch: millions of Arabic-speaking users navigating a digital world that often does not speak to them fluently.

This gap has long been treated as a content problem. Increasingly, startups are recognizing it as a ‘product problem’.

What “Arabic-First” Actually Means

Arabic-first does not mean simply offering an Arabic language toggle. Many global platforms do that. What they rarely do is rethink how products behave once Arabic is selected.

True Arabic-first startups design around the realities of the language itself. That includes right-to-left navigation, typography that respects readability, and interfaces that accommodate longer word structures and contextual phrasing. More importantly, it means building logic, workflows, and AI systems that understand Arabic as a living language that is rich in dialects, nuance, and cultural reference.

In other words, Arabic-first is not about accessibility alone. It is about relevance.

AI That Actually Understands Arabic

Few areas expose the weaknesses of surface-level localization as clearly as artificial intelligence. Arabic’s linguistic complexity—its morphology, syntax, and dialect diversity—has historically made it difficult for AI systems trained primarily on English data to perform well.

This is where local startups are finding their edge.

Riyadh-based Wittify.ai is one example. The company builds conversational AI agents designed around Arabic from the ground up. Its platform supports text and voice interactions across more than 25 Arabic dialects, enabling businesses to deploy AI for customer service, onboarding, and internal workflows without forcing users into English or broken translations.

Another Saudi startup, Maqsam, has taken a similar approach in voice automation. Its AI phone bots handle customer service calls entirely in Arabic, accurately transcribing speech, identifying intent, and responding naturally. In sectors like e-commerce, logistics, and financial services—where call centers remain critical—this kind of automation offers scalability without sacrificing familiarity.

These companies are not competing with global AI platforms on size or funding. They are competing on understanding.

When Arabic Becomes the Brand

Language choice is not limited to product functionality. It increasingly shows up in branding decisions, an area where Arabic was once sidelined in favor of English names perceived as more “global.”

That mindset is beginning to shift.

A notable example is DEEP.SA, a Saudi AI startup that deliberately incorporates the Arabic word عمق (meaning “depth”) into its logo and identity. The choice is both symbolic and strategic. It reflects the company’s focus on deep technology while anchoring its brand firmly in local language and meaning.

In a market where foreign or English brand names have long dominated, using Arabic as a primary identity signal stands out. It communicates intent: this product is built here, for this market, with local users in mind.

DEEP.SA’s approach aligns with a broader realization among founders that Arabic branding can build trust faster than imported terminology, especially in enterprise, government, and consumer platforms where credibility and clarity matter.

The same logic appears in other regional startups. Abjjad, an Arabic social reading platform, draws its name from the first letters of the Arabic alphabet. Yamli, whose name means “he dictates,” was built specifically to help Arabic speakers search using phonetic input. Tamatem, a mobile game publisher, chose an Arabic name while building a business that localizes global content for Arab audiences.

In each case, the name does more than label the product. It signals who the product is for.

Arabic AI Models Enter the Spotlight

If Arabic-first startups represent the application layer, then Arabic-first AI models are the infrastructure making all of this possible.

For years, Arabic developers were forced to build on top of language models trained overwhelmingly on English data. Arabic support existed, but often unevenly strong in Modern Standard Arabic, weaker in dialects, and prone to context errors that made enterprise use risky.

That gap is now starting to close.

One of the most prominent examples is Allam, Saudi Arabia’s Arabic large language model developed under the umbrella of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA). Designed specifically to understand Arabic linguistic structures, cultural references, and regional usage, Allam marks a strategic shift from adapting global AI models to building foundational technology locally.

Unlike multilingual models where Arabic is one language among many, Allam prioritizes Arabic as a primary language. This allows for more accurate comprehension, better contextual responses, and improved handling of formal Arabic as well as regional variations. For startups building products in customer service, legal tech, education, content moderation, or government services, that difference is not marginal; it is rather structural.

The presence of Arabic-native models changes the economics of building Arabic-first products. Startups no longer need to invest disproportionate resources correcting AI errors caused by weak language understanding. Instead, they can focus on product design, user experience, and sector-specific innovation.

Beyond Allam, the broader regional push toward Arabic AI reflects a growing recognition that language sovereignty matters in the age of generative technology. When AI systems shape how people search, learn, transact, and communicate, the languages they truly understand determine who benefits most from digital transformation.

For Arabic-first startups, models like Allam are more than technical milestones. They are enablers, quietly reinforcing the idea that building in Arabic is no longer a compromise, but a competitive advantage.

Why This Shift Is Happening Now

This shift toward Arabic-first products is not random. Several changes are happening at the same time.

User expectations have evolved. As people become more digitally savvy, they are less willing to tolerate poorly translated interfaces or awkward Arabic experiences. They expect products to work naturally in their own language.

Technology has also caught up. Recent progress in AI and language models makes it possible to build systems designed for Arabic from the start, instead of adapting tools originally made for English.

Policy direction plays a role too. In Saudi Arabia especially, national digital initiatives are encouraging innovation that reflects local culture and language, not just global standards.

There is also a clear business reason. As markets become more crowded, standing out becomes harder. Using language thoughtfully can create a real competitive advantage, one that is difficult for others to copy.

The Challenges Are Still Real

Arabic-first is not an easy path. Building high-quality Arabic language technology requires specialized talent, extensive datasets, and continuous iteration. Dialect diversity adds another layer of complexity that few global platforms are willing to invest in deeply.

There is also a lingering perception among some founders and investors that prioritizing Arabic limits global scalability. Yet many Arabic-first startups argue the opposite: products that solve local problems well are better positioned to expand thoughtfully than those that imitate global models without context.

Language as a Product Decision

What Arabic-first startups ultimately demonstrate is that language is not a cosmetic choice. It shapes how products are used, trusted, and adopted.

For decades, Arabic users adapted themselves to technology. Today, technology is beginning to adapt to Arabic. That shift may seem subtle, but its implications are significant.

As the Arab tech ecosystem matures, the startups that stand out may not be those that look the most global, but those that understand their users most deeply. And for hundreds of millions of people, that understanding begins with language.

Not as an afterthought..but as a starting point.