Neom quietly moves on from The Line’s original vision

Neom quietly rewrote its public pitch, and the edit could be a sign of where the money is going. The gigaproject overhauled its website to strip out the futuristic renders and sweeping promises that defined The Line's marketing, replacing them with more restrained language on delivery and commercial viability, AGBI first reported.

What changed? References to housing 9 mn people, operating without roads or cars, and running entirely on renewables no longer appear on The Line’s page. In Neom's new framing, The Line is now “a core component” of a “phased, demand-led approach.”

The restructure goes beyond language. Sindalah lost its standalone section on the website, while Magna’s page no longer lists the 15 boutique hotels it once showcased, including the 275-meter Epicon skyscraper.

But Neom says nothing has changed: “We routinely update our digital platforms to enhance user experience, and this should not be interpreted as signaling any change to our long-term vision or commitment to our developments,” a spokesperson tells EnterpriseAM, echoing the statement given to AGBI.

First, the background

The Line was the boldest promise in the Vision 2030 portfolio. Unveiled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2021 as the centerpiece of the USD 500 bn Neom development, it was pitched as two parallel mirrored skyscrapers running 170 km across the desert at a height of 500 meters, housing 9 mn people with no roads, no cars, and a fully renewable grid.

The concept made Neom the defining symbol of the Kingdom's diversification program, and its most scrutinized line item. By 2024, The Line was widely reported to have been scaled back to an initial 2.4 km phase for some 300k residents, a fraction of the original footprint. The website rewrite is the first time Neom's own marketing has caught up with that reality.

The new groove

What survives the cull is the port, the plant, and the data centers. Neom has continued advancing Oxagon, its Red Sea industrial port, whose strategic value has risen as Hormuz disruption pushes Gulf trade to look for routes that don't run through the strait. Next door sits the USD 8.4 bn green hydrogen plant, an equal JV between Neom, Acwa, and Air Products that is now in final equipment installation and pre-commissioning, with its 4 GW of dedicated solar and wind due for completion by mid-2026 and first green ammonia expected in 2027. At full tilt, it is designed to produce 600 tonnes of clean hydrogen per day, shipped as up to 1.2 mn tonnes of green ammonia a year.

The logistics case is stronger than the skyline case ever was, Abdullah Almeer, assistant professor of economics at KFUPM Business School, tells EnterpriseAM. Neom's position on the Red Sea, with routes into the Suez Canal, becomes “a huge plus if things get tense around key waterways like Hormuz,” he said, adding that Iraq, Jordan and the wider GCC would gain from better trade-route access. He points to proposed rail links through Jordan as a faster overland path to Europe, and to the hydrogen plant as fuel for cleaner shipping. Add Neom's investor-facing regime and “it's no surprise that major logistics firms are showing interest,” he says.

The AI leg of the pivot has its own institutional machinery. PIF’s AI champion Humain is building the full AI stack — including data centers, cloud infrastructure, models, and applications — and Neom’s data center ambitions slot into that national push. “We're still in the early stage of the AI revolution,” Almeer said, but the foundation “puts the Kingdom in a strong position to be a major player tomorrow.”

Why it matters

The public narrative is finally converging with the capital allocation. The Public Investment Fund has been cutting spending since 2024, with some project budgets down as much as 60%, capex is expected to fall some 15% this year. The restructuring could reportedly cost up to USD 16 bn in cancelled contracts. That includes a USD 5 bn Trojena package tied to producing artificial snow for the 2029 Asian Winter Games, an event the Kingdom has since lost the right to host.

The squeeze has three drivers. Lower oil prices, rising delivery costs and weaker-than-expected foreign investment have forced Riyadh to reprioritize and phase the project pipeline, with the fallout from the Iran war constraining crude exports and adding to the pressure. Officials have been explicit that hard-deadline commitments now come first — spending is being redirected toward Expo 2030 in Riyadh and the 2034 FIFA World Cup, both of which carry immovable delivery dates that a 50-year city does not.

Sindalah is the cautionary tale inside the portfolio. The luxury island was meant to be Neom’s first completed destination, but it never opened to the public after its troubled 2024 launch, with its marina hit by wind and wave conditions that weren't adequately accounted for in planning. Red Sea Global CEO John Pagano told Reuters last month his company will take over the island and work out how to revive it after “unrealistic timelines” contributed to its difficulties.