Web3 game developer Animoca Brands and Saudi Arabia’s NEOM Investment Fund announced a new partnership on October 30 to boost Web3 development in the region.
According to the announcement, the new agreement will see Animoca work with NEOM to develop Web3 enterprise services capabilities. The planned Web3 services are intended to be applied globally, although they will first be deployed to support advances in emerging technology in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and the NEOM region.
NEOM is a region in northwest Saudi Arabia that is becoming what the government calls a “living laboratory” for a new future society. It is expected to be hyper-connected with emerging technology and an innovation hub.
The Animoca association plans to establish a center within NEOM to support the local Web3 ecosystem and is part of Saudi Arabia’s broader “Saudi Vision 2030” plan for greater economic, social and cultural diversification.
Majid Mufti, CEO of NEOM Investment Fund, commented on the development:
“The development of Web3 infrastructure and technology will not only be an important foundation for NEOM’s architecture and technology, but also has the potential to revolutionize global industries.”
The NEOM Investment Fund also proposes to invest $50 million in Animoca Brands.
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Yat Siu, co-founder and CEO of Animoca Brands, described part of his vision for the Web3 ecosystem as “the emergence of a new metanation.” With the emergence of this new agreement with NEOM, he said:
“Now NEOM could well become the first region to fully harness the power of blockchain.”
In recent years, the greater Middle East region has been rapidly accelerating its adoption of emerging technologies. In addition to its NEOM project, Saudi Arabia recently partnered with universities in China to develop an Arabic-based artificial intelligence (ai) system to process queries in its local language.
On October 18, OpenAI, the developer of the popular ai chatbot ChatGPT, announced a partnership with Dubai-based technology group G42, which is focused on expansion in the Middle East.
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