Saudi Arabia: the NEOM dream turns into a fiasco after more than 50 billion dollars swallowed up

Presented as the spectacular showcase of the new Saudi Arabia, NEOM is today at a standstill after having swallowed up more than 50 billion dollars. According to the Wall Street JournalRiyadh must now spend several billion more to settle certain contracts, while gigantic, half-built structures remain planted in the desert. Monumental and still unfinished infrastructures bear witness to the extent of the decline. The kingdom now seems to be redirecting part of its investments towards sectors deemed more strategic, notably artificial intelligence and data centers, with a $5 billion project carried out with DataVolt at Oxagon.

Launched in 2017, NEOM was to embody one of the most ambitious urban projects ever conceived. Its centerpiece, The Line, promised a linear city of 170 kilometers, without cars, powered by clean energy and intended to accommodate several million inhabitants. But behind the futuristic images and spectacular announcements, costs have exploded and objectives have been gradually revised downwards. Workforce reductions, departures of managers and successive reviews have highlighted the gap between the initial ambitions and the reality of the project.

The symbol is striking: tens of billions of dollars spent on a project which was to reshape the future of the kingdom, but part of which today remains frozen in the sand. NEOM was to demonstrate that Saudi Arabia could transform a futuristic vision into reality in a few years. It now illustrates the limits of a strategy based on excessive announcements, unrealistic deadlines and colossal investments.

This decline constitutes a serious setback for Vision 2030, Mohammed bin Salman’s flagship program intended to reduce the kingdom’s dependence on oil. Riyadh now seems to favor more immediately profitable investments, notably in AI, digital infrastructure and data centers.