Aseel Bashraheel

JEDDAH: Saudi Aramco has been taking advantage of accelerated technology to build its reliability in the market as well as decreasing carbon emissions.

Using data analytics and simulation models to manage reservoirs has helped the company reach a 70 percent recovery rate, all due to technology, according to Amin Nasser, Saudi Aramco’s president and CEO.

“Our reliability for 2020 is 99.8 percent, one of the highest in the world in terms of delivery,” he told delegates during the fourth edition of the Future Investment Initiative (FII) forum, which is currently underway in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia’s “agility and executional speed” to invest in technology has given the Kingdom the largest digital investment in the Middle East and North Africa, worth a billion dollars, the Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Eng. Abdullah Amer Al-Swaha, said during the panel, entitled “Cracking the Code: What is the future of global technology policy?”

The minister also announced a partnership with Babylon Health to use data and artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the cost of health consultations to a dollar when delivered by a machine.

Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan encouraged investors to consider the vast industries within the Kingdom that offer ample investment opportunities through privatization, even during challenging times as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the ongoing restructure of laws and regulations, the Kingdom has worked hard to ramp up up investment and provide further business opportunities, while being transparent with its partners, the minister added.

“In addition to all of this, we’ve reformed the capital market both on the equity side and debt side, the latter market has grown up to 200 percent during 2020 and we’re likely to see further growth,” he concluded.