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Saudi Arabia’s US$100 billion investment firm Alat piles into SoftBank and Dahua Technology

  • The new vehicle, Alat, and SoftBank will invest as much as US$150 million to establish a fully-automated manufacturing and engineering hub in Riyadh
  • Alat also tied up with Dahua Technology to invest US$200 million to make products for use in security and surveillance

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The booth of Zhejiang Dahua Technology at the International Security Conference and Exposition (ISC West) in Las Vegas on April 10, 2019. Photo: Xinhua.
Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia’s new US$100 billion investment firm announced a string of deals Tuesday, including partnerships with SoftBank Group and a Chinese surveillance equipment maker to set up local manufacturing facilities, as part of the kingdom’s efforts to transform itself into an industrial powerhouse.
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The new vehicle, Alat, and SoftBank will invest as much as US$150 million to establish a fully-automated manufacturing and engineering hub in Riyadh. The venture will build industrial robots based on intellectual property developed by SoftBank, with the first factory set to open in December.

Alat also tied up with Dahua Technology on a venture to make products for use in security and surveillance. The companies will invest US$200 million in the business, which will be majority owned by the Saudi company.

Dahua was among firms banned from selling electronics in the US by regulators who said they posed a security risk. The company has previously supplied products to Saudi Arabia, including face scanners for the government’s US$500 billion megaproject, Neom.

“Today’s announcement marks a historic milestone for how future manufacturing will take place,” SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son said. The Saudi Public Investment Fund has a long-standing relationship with SoftBank and committed US$45 billion to the Vision Fund.

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