If all goes according to plan, within a few years, one million people will live in Saudi Arabia’s ‘city of the future’ – and every one of them will depend on a fleet of self-driving cars. 

Saudi Arabia has set aside $500bn to invest in the economic zone of Neom, a smart city that will be built from scratch and where inhabitants will get around by using fully autonomous vehicles (AVs). While it is certainly a significant project, the systems being developed for the Neom megacity are still in the design phase, with many details either not yet decided or not communicated to the public.

The partners have executed a six-week expedition aboard the OceanXplorer, the most advanced exploration, research and media vessel ever built.

NEOM, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic $500bn city has announced extensive findings from a joint mission with OceanX, a non-profit ocean exploration organisation. The expedition is the most adventurous assessment of the northern Red Sea to date.

The chief executive of French owned power giant ENGIE in Saudi Arabia, Turki Al-Shehri, finds it hard to hide his excitement about green hydrogen. However, he couldn’t hide his worries on the difficulties that conventional energy projects are currently facing.  

On the other hand, Al-Shehri firmly believes the future is hydrogen. He said: "I think it’s a global energy changer. Green hydrogen is coming. Even before it was even a buzzword, we’ve been spending roughly €60 million a year on green hydrogen research around the world."