19 May 2022
The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and Chairman of the Board of Directors of NEOM, one of the pillars of the Kingdom’s vision 2030m Muhammad bin Salman bin Abdul aziz, announced the establishment of the NEOM Industrial City "Oxagon", in a move aimed at providing a new model for future manufacturing centers in line with NEOM's strategy. It aims to redefine the way humanity will live and work in the future.
On October 24, 2017, the Saudi Crown Prince launched the giant "NEOM" project, for a cross-border city, in the far northwest of Saudi Arabia, extending over an area of 460 km on the Red Sea coast, within the framework of Vision 2030 by transforming the country into a leading global model in various aspects of life.
The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s brainchild NEOM is the main project of his 13-year plan to modernize the Kingdom by 2030. And the Public Investment Fund (PIF) is providing funds for the project NEOM. Crown Prince Mohammed is the head of both NEOM and the Public Investment Fund.
Oxagon will play an important part to wean Saudi Arabia off its dependence on oil and switch the country into a technology hub like Silicon Valley, incorporating cities, research centers, education districts, and tourist attractions. But the designers have not yet revealed how much the project will cost or how the Oxagon will float. NEOM's plans show that it will be 33 times the size of New York City and its center will be a "smart" city, also called NEOM.
The Saudi Crown Prince while chairing the board of directors of NEOM explained that the Oxagon Industrial City will prove to be a catalyst for economic development and diversification in NEOM precisely and the Kingdom substantially, explaining that the Neom Industrial City will contribute to redefining the world's orientation towards industrial development in the future, in addition to its contribution to protecting the environment, creating new opportunities for work and growth, and achieving the vision's goals.
The proposed construction, called Oxagon, has been described as a "holistic knowledge city" that will take advantage of robotics and artificial intelligence and will serve as an industrial port hub for the country's newest district in the northwest - NEOM.
Oxagon will also contribute to supporting the Kingdom in the field of regional trade, in addition to supporting trade flows globally. The prince further stated, “I am delighted to see growth and expansion as business have already begun on the land of the industrial city, and I look forward to seeing its rapid development.”
As declared, a huge area in the southwest corner of NEOM will be occupied by Oxagon, at a time when the primary urban environment is positioned around the integrated port and logistics hub, where majority of the population of the industrial city will be located, while the octagonal design of the city will minimize any impacts on the environment to provide the best possible use of the land, to support the trend of preserving 95% of the natural environment.
Officials claim it will be a net-zero city that will be powered entirely by clean energy - but they haven't revealed yet how much they will cost or how they will build the world's largest floating structure.
The city forms the world's largest floating structure, and will be the center of NEOM's development of a "blue economy" by relying on the seas for sustainable development. The city will have a state-of-the-art integrated port and will be connected to the airport.
In turn, Engineer Nazmi Al-Nasr, CEO of NEOM, told a local agency that the Oxagon was designed to be effective in the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution by relying on big data in a more efficient way, to improve the performance of manufacturing processes.
The city will be designed to utilize advanced technologies as well as “human-machine fusion, artificial and predictive intelligence, and robotics.”
With best-in-class regulatory standards and broad support, the industrial city is set to grow rapidly, and will welcome industrialists, investors and business owners at the start of 2022.
Plans include drone taxis, a Jurassic Park-style theme park with robotic dinosaurs, and the world's highest density of Michelin-starred restaurants, according to the Wall Street Journal. The harsh landscapes of the region will be transformed by cloud seeding machines, the world's largest coral garden, glow-in-the-dark sand, and a giant satellite that glows at night. To know more about the latest development and legal updates visit our official website.