Riyadh - Sharikat Mubasher: The American cloud-based software company Salesforce announced investing $500 million to drive artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and growth in Saudi Arabia.

This announcement, made during LEAP 2025, reflects Salesforce’s commitment to innovation and economic growth in the region, a recent statement revealed.

Through this investment, the company aims to spur workforce development through AI skilling and expand Salesforce’s local partner ecosystem to support local businesses.

The investment follows Salesforce’s Davos pledge to expand its presence in Saudi Arabia with a new regional headquarters in Riyadh. As part of this expansion, Salesforce will bring Hyperforce, its next-generation platform architecture, to the Kingdom. Hyperforce will enable Salesforce’s global customer base to run workloads locally through a distributed public cloud infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Alswaha, said: “Salesforce’s investment in the Kingdom is a continuation of our shared commitment to drive AI growth. We look forward to seeing Salesforce expand its presence here and welcome the investment in AI that will drive unprecedented innovation and operational efficiency, supporting the realization of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 goals.”

For his part, Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce, commented: “We are entering a new era where autonomous AI agents working with humans are transforming workforces and businesses across the globe.”

LEAP 2025 took place in Riyadh from 9 to 12 February, with the participation of over 1,800 exhibitors, more than 1,000 speakers, and over 680 startups. It brought together global leaders from the public and private sectors, top innovators, and key stakeholders in tech investment.

Under the theme ‘Into New Worlds,’ this four-day event aimed to showcase the latest innovations and facilitate knowledge exchange, expanding business networking and investment opportunities in the tech sector.