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Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Artificial Intelligence (NCAI) will work with China’s Alibaba Cloud and Huawei in projects that aim to harness artificial intelligence (AI) for smart city developments and workforce transformation. Both agreements are part of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to reach its targeted goals for its Vision 2030 programme, which aims to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence in oil sales. The NCAI will work with Huawei to train local AI engineers to ensure a pipeline of skills is available to support a diversified and data-driven economy, while Alibaba Cloud technologies will support Saudi Arabia’s smart city ambitions. Majid Altuwaijri, CEO at the NCAI, said the work with Huawei will transform Saudi Arabia’s workforce so that it can utilise the power of data and AI. “This will be done through education, upskilling and reskilling of Saudis to create a steady supply of data and AI-empowered talent for the country’s workforce,” said Altuwaijri. Meanwhile Alibaba Cloud has agreed to work with the NCAI to ...