The director of the National Information Center at the Saudi authority for data and artificial intelligence "SDAIA", Dr. Essam bin Abdullah Al-waqit, stressed that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is sailing in the renaissance of digital smart cities; on the cusp of a pivotal shift towards the era of knowledge cities, which are not limited to being smart cities only, but go beyond that to have the ability to adapt, learn and develop, which ultimately leads to enhancing the decision-making environment that helps improve the lifestyle of citizens.
He said that the kingdom has introduced initiatives in the field of Smart Cities based on innovation to be a constant reference around which many countries of the world gather, pointing out that smart cities are one of the basics of sustainable urban life for humanity.

This came in a speech delivered by His Excellency yesterday during the activities of the World Conference on smart cities held in Barcelona, Spain, indicating that despite the differences in the concept of smart cities from one country to another, everyone shares one goal is to raise the well-being of citizens ' lives by providing technically advanced civil services in the best ways and practices.

He added that generative artificial intelligence integrated into city services and urban solutions will become the cornerstone of Future Smart Cities initiatives, pointing out that leveraging the power of generative artificial intelligence will not only design and urban planning our cities, but will create smart cities adapted to the needs of their residents and enhanced for a sustainable and inclusive living environment.

He stated that in line with the increasing use of the Internet of things, the kingdom has shown its commitment to the basic vision of enhancing the smart city environment so that communication and connectivity are not just applied concepts but a way of life, by seamlessly integrating the Internet of things into the city's technical fabric to upgrade the urban experience, improve all the basic components of the city, and transform the way we interact civically with the urban environment.

He pointed to the transformation of the national flagship project "NEOM", where the project is a realistic embodiment of the future vision of smart cities through the effective use of the Internet of things, big data, artificial intelligence that aims to redefine the concepts of urban design and planning, in addition to setting new global standards for efficiency in improving every aspect of the urban city and achieving well-being for its citizens.

In his speech, His Excellency discussed the transformation journey of "SDAIA "through its various initiatives, including: the establishment of the Riyadh smart operations center (Smart ROC), which acts as a central point that uses data and artificial intelligence technologies to monitor, analyze and predict operational indicators in various sectors in Riyadh, explaining that the main goal of the center is to address the challenges of the city, improve the quality of life, infrastructure and urban services.

He continued, "SDAIA has developed intelligent crowd and traffic monitoring systems through coordination with a group of government agencies to build AI-based systems, as the center was able to successfully manage traffic during the LEAP23 conference in Riyadh, which led to reducing traffic congestion by 36% and ensuring a quick and effective response to ambulance and emergency cases in a record time.