Business leaders, academics and government officials are meeting this week (September 10-12) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss next steps for AI at the Global AI Summit (GAIN), with notable speakers including Antoine Blondeau of Alpha Intelligence Capital, Accenture’s Julie Sweet and Qualcomm’s Christiano Amon – and a call at the opening ceremony for collaboration between humans and AI systems.

Seminars and presentations at the event, hosted by the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) are covering everything from ethics to the complexities of digital companions.

The third edition of the annual event opened with a performance-art ceremony soundtracked by John Lennon’s Imagine and setting out a hopeful vision for the future for AGI (artificial general intelligence).

“Let’s think about human-centered AI. Despite the challenges, I remain optimistic. The solution is unity. We can navigate the AI-driven world through collaboration,” said SDAIA President Abdullah bin Sharaf Al-Ghamdi in his opening speech.

The increasing interdependence between AI and traffic management was underscored by a panel on bridging the real-time data gap for urban traffic flows.

“I attended the first GAIN conference, and you can see it has really grown. There is a lot of energy and vibe from many different companies and so many new ideas, and people are really committed to the AI drive here,” said panel speaker Professor Sohaib Ahmad Khan.

Traffic technology also features heavily in booths at the event, with Saudi public company SAMI-AEC showcasing its UVSS scanning system, able to identify vehicles by their undercarriage.

Also present is Tahakom, a prominent Saudi firm involved in ‘risk-detection’ and smart mobility through the Sawaher platform and boasting powerful AI supercomputers. International companies exhibiting technology include EV OEM Lucid, Boston Dynamics, Huawei, FanRuan and Hewlett-Packard.

“I’m very excited to be here attending this AI summit. I think it’s a very open market and there’s lots of opportunities to explore,” said Iris Yan spokesperson for FanRuan which produces web reporting tools with smartcity use-cases, in partnership with Huawei.

GAIN summit is part of a push by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to place itself at the forefront of global AI development with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) investing $40 billion. It ties in with Saudi Vision 2030, a nationwide strategy to diversify away from petrochemicals into smart infrastructure and other high-tech, high value-added industries.