Ambitious plans for a 100-mile-long megacity in Saudi Arabia – a key part of the kingdom’s $2 trillion redevelopment project – have been put on hold so they can be scaled back. THE LINE was meant to be one of the Arab country’s so-called giga projects, designed to diversify the economy away from oil through real estate as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan. Now, however, the Riyadh regime appears to have shifted priorities.

THE LINE was envisioned as a futuristic linear city in the desert by the Red Sea, part of Saudi Arabia’s NEOM city project.

Set to house 9 million people, over a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s population, it was envisioned to redefine what cities of the future might look like.

According to The Times, the downsized scheme will hold a fraction of the planned population, with 300,000 residents in a city only a few miles long.

A source told Reuters last week the country was choosing to refocus its funds after gigaproject delays, instead leaning into investment in artificial intelligence and data centres powered by hydrocarbon.

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