Saudi Arabia Aims to Become Chip Design Center
TapTechNews June 6 news, according to a report by Bloomberg, Saudi Arabia has launched a brand-new strategy aiming to become a center for chip design, hoping to promote the diversified development of its national economy and reduce reliance on crude oil.
Saudi Arabia announced the establishment of a national semiconductor center on Wednesday to support fabless chip companies that design new types of chips. The goal of this plan is to attract 50 such companies to settle in Saudi Arabia by 2030. Naveed Sherwani, the head of the new center, said that the plan will focus on relatively simple chips rather than cutting-edge technologies, and at least in the medium term, chip manufacturing will still be carried out in international foundries.
We don't want to replace NVIDIA or challenge Intel, Sherwani said in an interview with Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Future Semiconductor Forum held in Riyadh. We hope to start from the basics and talk about longer-term goals after building a solid foundation.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seeking to explore emerging industries to increase non-oil income. This initiative highlights the growing importance of semiconductors to Saudi Arabia. The country's broader vision is to become a regional leader in advanced technology fields and plans to establish data centers, artificial intelligence companies, and chip manufacturing bases.
In February this year, Alat, an investment company with a capital of 100 billion US dollars under the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, was established. Its mission is to invest in building new manufacturing centers to support Saudi Arabia's ambition in the technology field and to find partners in the chip field.
Ross Jatou, president of the semiconductor division of Alat, said that the company plans to produce 1 million wafers by 2030, which is expected to generate approximately 10 billion US dollars in revenue. This may mean that Alat may be involved in the discussion of local manufacturing of Saudi Arabia's emerging chip design companies in the future.
Naveed Sherwani said that currently the focus of the new center is to attract and support new fabless chip companies. Three companies have signed up to join the plan, and another 10 companies have also expressed their intention to join.
We want to make this place like Silicon Valley, Sherwani said, who is also the chief executive officer of RapidSilicon, an artificial intelligence technology solutions provider. We offer free venues and various incentive measures in terms of salary and relocation. There are a total of 10 preferential policies that apply to any enterprise that wants to establish a company here.
These incentive measures include getting support from a new 10-billion-riyal (TapTechNews note: currently about 1.936 billion Chinese yuan) new fund provided by Saudi Arabia. Sherwani said that companies that hire Saudi employees will receive government funding to cover half of the employees' salaries for two years.