Intel commits to Saudi economic city

Chip giant Intel is the latest firm to sign an agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Knowledge Economic City (KEC) Al Madinah.

The company yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide technology to the city.

“We recognise the opportunities that the youthful demographics of MENA as a whole provide and the potential for Knowledge Economic City as a Smart City,” Ferhad Patel, general manager for Saudi Arabia at Intel, said.

The deal will include the provision of ultra mobile personal computers (UMPCs) – small personal computers the size of a mobile or PDA.

“Our knowledge workers will be encouraged to use Intel’s UMPCs as a single source for all their applications in our connected smart city, instead of having a pocket full of applications,” said Mohammed Shah, KEC’s chief technology officer. Knowledge Economic City Al Madinah is one of six economic cities being developed in regional areas in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to create employment and drive economic development outside of the major cities of Riyadh and Jeddah.

The US$7 billion project, which is due to be complete by 2020, is expected to create more than 20,000 jobs.

Intel’s involvement comes less than two weeks after networking giant Cisco said it had agreed to develop a ‘smart city’ for the development.