Good morning. It was a good November for the Kingdom’s international trade, with our surplus logging a three-year high and oil exports continuing their recovery. Re-exports remained the biggest driver for non-oil exports growth.

ALSO- A new healthcare player is eyeing to list 2 mn new shares on Nomu, as the parallel market is carefully recovering from a major 2025 downturn.

AND- S&P sees GCC oil giants tightening their purses in 2026, slowing down their spending to focus on enhancing value chains and boosting upstream activities.

BUT FIRST — A new vision for Neom? The government is reportedly redesigning Neom to be a hub for data centers, unnamed sources told the Financial Times. The “far smaller” development will be geared to serve the Kingdom’s AI ambitions.

Alternative designs that considerably scale back The Line — Neom’s futuristic city — are also in the works, the sources told the salmon-colored paper, adding that “The Line will be a totally different concept. It will use the existing infrastructure in a totally different manner.”

It seems that management of the project will also see a shake up, with sources familiar with the matter telling AGBI that restructure could entail transferring control of Neom from PIF to other state-backed entities.

What they said: While steering clear of confirming the news, Neom said it’s “always looking at how to phase and prioritize our initiatives so that they align with national objectives and create long-term value” in a statement to the Financial Times.

Why it matters: The Kingdom’s transformation strategy has been expanding beyond flagship engineering gigaprojects to other “ecosystems,” including AI and tourism. Gigaprojects like Neom have entered a year-long “comprehensive review” — set to wrap up in the next few months — amid tighter fiscal conditions. Reconsidering Neom as an industrial and data center hub signals a bid to bring faster returns and support the government’s long-term engineering investments.

Recalibration and delays in other parts of Neom have also affected Riyadh’s plans, including deferring the 2029 Asian Winter Games — which was scheduled to take place at Neom’s Trojena mountain resort.

** Want a deeper dive? Check out our review of the Kingdom’s shift in gigaproject focus.

Happening today

The Real Estate Future Forum 2026 kicks off today at the Four Seasons Kingdom Center in Riyadh, running until 28 January. Last year saw the National Housing Company (NHC) ink SAR 30 bn worth of real estate agreements.

WEATHER– Keep your windows closed: Dust storms are set to make visibility drop below 1 km in parts of Riyadh, the Eastern Province, and Najran.

  • Riyadh: 18°C high / 6°C low.
  • Jeddah: 32°C high / 22°C low.
  • Makkah: 33°C high / 23°C low.
  • Dammam: 19°C high / 9°C low.

Watch this space

TECH — Saudi Arabia is pitching a “cheap token” future from Davos, positioning itself as a low-cost global provider of AI compute after clocking USD 0.11 per mn tokens in 2025, Communications and Information Technology Minister Abdullah Alswaha said (watch, runtime 2:58).

The pitch: Investing in hardware that prioritizes “memory on the chip, next to the chip, and near to the chip” will bypass the “memory wall” bottleneck that slows processing, Alswaha said.

Why it matters:Alswaha’s benchmark of USD 0.11 per mn tokens sets a sovereign floor for AI compute, undercutting models from global tech firms including OpenAI, Google and DeepSeek. While the US and China race to build the smartest AI models, Saudi Arabia aims to make running them the cheapest, not unlike its low-cost approach that fueled its petrochemicals industry.

Adoption is key: “Alswaha highlighted the Kingdom’s role as a global “testbed” for innovators, and stressed that success depends on moving beyond supply to actual adoption, warning that focusing solely on AI supply could trigger “a couple of winters and bubbles.”

FOOD — Brazilian meat giant JBS plans to double output at its new chicken processing plant in Jeddah by end-2026, it said in a statement. The facility, which began operations last year, has already quadrupled the group’s production capacity in the Kingdom, where it sells beef and chicken under the Seara brand, now ranked among the Kingdom’s top three by market share, Reuters reports.

A Brazilian protein race: The move is the third recent major investment by a Brazilian protein producer in the Kingdom, as JBS and BRF race to localize supply chains amid Saudi Arabia’s push for 90% food self-sufficiency under Vision 2030. BRF has formed a JV with Halal Products Development Company, is planning a Riyadh listing, and is building a Jeddah food factory due by mid-2026. Meanwhile, JBS has invested USD 85 mn since 2021 and is partnering with Entaj to expand local Seara production.

IN CONTEXT- The Kingdom nearly doubled its poultry production over the past decade, as part of a push for food self-sufficiency and to address an 80% reliance on food imports that leaves the Kingdom vulnerable to shocks. The Kingdom has earmarked USD 4.5 bn to increase local poultry output, and it already achieved a 72% self-sufficiency rate in 2025 with over 1 mn tons of poultry meat produced annually.

EDUCATION — Investment manager Ashmore Investment Saudi Arabia is looking to up its investment in the local education sector to roughly SAR 1 bn, CEO Ahmed Al Mohaisen told Asharq Business (watch, runtime: 1:35), adding that the firm has launched an education investment fund. Education, alongside the industrial sector, currently make up 20% of the firm’s total portfolio, which roughly amounts to SAR 7 bn, Al Mohaisen said.

Data point

14 mn — that’s the new annual capacity of King Khalid International Airport after its Terminals 1 and 2 completed development yesterday, up from 6 mn earlier, state news agency SPA reported. Terminal 1 will handle international flights operated by flyadeal and flynas, while Terminal 2 — which was opened for business yesterday — will serve Saudia and Riyadh Airlines. Facilities include 114 check-in counters, 20 e-passport gates in departures, and 75 counters, 22 e-passport gates, and eight customs screening devices in arrivals.

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The big story abroad

It’s a quiet Monday morning in the global business press, with a single story dominating the headlines — another fatal shooting of a US citizen by federal agents in Minneapolis, the second of its kind this month. The resulting backlash from Democrats and wavering enthusiasm from Republicans signals the possibility of another government shutdown, as well as raising the stakes for the year’s midterm elections.

AND IN MARKETS- Gold hits fresh high: Gold jumped past the USD 5k mark for the very first time as investors and central banks look to the safe haven asset amid geopolitical tensions. The metal has been steadily rising for some time now, jumping 8% last week alone, its largest spike since the 2008 financial crisis.

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