Skift Take
Saudi has launched a global drive to bring in more investors and it wants to demonstrate progress. “Show, don’t tell,” says Neom.
Saudi Arabia wants investors to know its ambitious Neom development is on track.
Its effort is called “Ground X” and is meant to show live feeds of construction sites, project deadlines, and a “progress library” for each zone of Neom, including Sindalah, The Line and Trojena.
Skift learned about it through a Neom job posting, an active listing calling for a “PMO Specialist” to join the Ground X team, which the posting says is “responsible for delivering a mandate to document Neom’s progress.”
The Ground X website is not open to the public and Skift was not able to review it.
But a public version of the website does give some details: It says it has installed 452 time-lapse cameras, 63 live cameras and more than 300 drone locations across Neom, capturing two million photos and 70,000 videos.
A “success cases” page on the project’s website lays out its intent: “Ground X is empowering Neom’s key Leaders and Managers in completing project milestones on time and budget with full credibility and trust of Investors.”
A “pricing” page says, “Show, don’t tell. Amplify asset credibility and investor allure with clear progress showcases.”
A Neom spokesperson told Skift: “We do have GroundX, they’re like our in-house content studio. Investors and anyone who is given access can see live developments of key assets.”
Progress in Neom Zones
Neom is made up of several zones: Magna, Oxagon, Sindalah, Trojena, and The Line. More areas may be announced by Neom in the future.
Trojena, which is scheduled to host the Asia Winter Games in 2029, has installed more than 10 cameras, according to the public Ground X site, which doesn’t indicate when it was last updated.
The Line, a 170-kilometer-long indoor city, has more than 250 real-time lapse videos of the site’s progress, the site says.
Sindalah, the luxury island center of Neom, conducts monthly drone flights across the island to update managers “without the need to go onsite.” Neom has said Sindalah will be the first zone to open to the public with a late 2024 completion.
A “Progress Platform” shows the progress of each zone, its expected competition date, and how far along it is. Skift couldn’t see real-time updates, but the public site does make screenshots available.
Showing Real Progress to Investors
The effort to build trust with investors comes as Bloomberg reported in April that Neom was having cash-flow problems and projects being downsized.
Unnamed sources told Bloomberg in April that The Line is scaling back from 170 kilometers long to just 2.4 kilometers, with the rest of the length to be completed after 2030. Neom expects The Line to be finished by 2045 now, 15 years later than initially planned.
In December 2023, finance minister Mohammed Al Jadaan said, “The delay or rather the extension of some projects will serve the economy.” He made the statement during a press conference discussing Saudi’s 2024 budget, and it was the first time the government mentioned any delays within its Saudi Vision.
FDI Push
Saudi has launched a global drive to bring in more investors. At the end of April, BlackRock said it would be getting as much as $5 billion from Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) to invest in the region and build a Riyadh-based investments team.
That same month, Saudi flew dozens of bankers to Neom to explore “collaborative avenues,” according to Neom’s CEO Nadhmi Al-Nasr in a statement. The event drew representatives from 24 international banks and financial institutions, including those from Europe and the U.S. and in the region.
This month, PIF landed one of its largest FDI deals to date. A pact worth up to $50 billion between the wealth fund and six Chinese banks was signed.
Saudi Arabia’s government is forecast to run a budget deficit of $21 billion this year, after long being in surplus. PIF’s cash position, as high as $50 billion in 2022, was $15 billion as of September 2023.
