Saudi giga-project NEOM has joined forces with Microsoft to launch a new program, with its sights set on using the power of artificial intelligence to revolutionize the Kingdom’s traditional sports sector.    The management of the $500 billion-city has officially unveiled the “NEOM Sports Open Innovation Program” aimed at transforming conventional sports through cutting-edge technologies, with a specific emphasis on artificial intelligence and adventure sports.   This program has been launched in collaboration with the Global Sports Innovation Center, leveraging the capabilities of Microsoft.  

HD Hyundai Electric Co., the electrical equipment and energy solution company under South Korea’s shipbuilding giant HD Hyundai Co., has won a 67.8 billion won ($51 million) deal to supply substation equipment for Saudi Arabia’s smart and green city NEOM, the Korean company announced on Monday. Under the contract signed with Al Gihaz Contracting Company Saudi Arabia on Sunday, the Korean company will provide transformers, high-voltage circuit breakers and reactors in a package for the Saudi Arabian power company’s substation project dubbed NEOM Mountain by February 2025.

NEOM will once again be the stage of one of the most exciting beach soccer competitions of the season: the NEOM Beach Soccer Cup. Between the 25th and 28th of October, the best beach soccer action will unfold in the sands of Saudi Arabia, as part of the NEOM Beach Games.  Like last year, this edition of the NEOM Beach Soccer Cup will include both a men’s a women’s tournament.

Organisers have revealed plans for triathlon, beach soccer, 3x3 basketball, mountain biking and sport climbing to take place at this year's second edition of the NEOM Beach Games. NEOM forms part of the Saudi Vision 2030 to transform the country's economy and reduce its reliance on oil, and hopes to emerge as a sports destination. The planned resort of TROJENA has already been awarded the 2029 Asian Winter Games.

Located in Saudi Arabia’s forthcoming “wellness haven” of Amaala, the Equinox Resort will have a magnesium salt rooftop pool and signature gym. Jenny Southan reports Red Sea Global, the developer behind the “world’s most ambitious regenerative tourism destinations” – Amaala and the Red Sea, in Saudi Arabia – has announced a partnership with cutting-edge gym and wellness hotel creator Equinox, to open the Equinox Resort Amaala.

Dan Naudo has been appointed as General Manager at Sindalah Island Golf Club in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Dan has spent the last five years at the Fairmont St Andrews in Scotland, recently host to the Asian Tours International Series, and most recently ended his time there as Director of Operations in September 2022. Sindalah Island Golf Club, which is part of the $500bn NEOM development project currently under construction on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Coast, will feature a 9-hole course designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr.

Visitors to the upcoming Cityscape Global event to be held at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center from 10-13 September, are set to experience the future of living, courtesy of an immersive exhibit and informative presentations by NEOM, the smart and sustainable region taking shape in northwest Saudi Arabia.