Saudi Arabia is positioning itself to be a global hub for gaming and esports by 2030 as part of its national strategy, with its first milestone set in 2027 to launch the first-ever Olympics Esports Games.
On a panel discussion at the LEAP 2025 Tech Conference in Riyadh on Tuesday, Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan, Chairman of the Saudi Esports Federation, announced the news, sharing the country's envision of making Saudi Arabia a part of the global esports map.
"It was announced today that officially the Olympics esports games will start taking place in 2027 in Saudi Arabia as its first edition. And I think we'll have multiple editions over the next 12 years as part of our agreement with the IOC in Saudi. We will become a global hub for gaming and esports by 2030," he said.
As part of the country's broader effort to share its culture and promote digital innovation, Saudi Arabia's national esports strategy, launched in 2022, aims to contribute approximately 50 billion Saudi riyals to the economy and create over 39,000 jobs by 2030.
Saudi Arabia to hold first Esports Olympics, aiming to be global esports hub
Smart technologies have reshaped China's ecological and environmental monitoring system, Huang Runqiu, minister of Ecology and Environment, said Thursday in Beijing on the sidelines of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress(NPC).
"Regarding ecological and environmental monitoring, we have been promoting the digitalization, informatization, and intelligentization of the entire monitoring process in recent years, reshaping the ecological and environmental monitoring system. For instance, in water environment monitoring and sampling, we have used intelligent drones which can quickly locate sampling points, collect samples accurately, return rapidly, and they are safe and reliable, improving work efficiency by over 70 percent. They are particularly advantageous for sampling during flood seasons and in remote areas," Huang told the press.
"In terms of environmental sample analysis, we have developed 'lights-out laboratories' in recent years. As the name suggests, these labs operate without lights and are unattended. Through robotic arms, robots, and intelligent management systems, they achieve full-process automation and intelligence from sample handover, testing, and analysis to report generation. This has significantly enhanced work efficiency, increasing it by more than eightfold compared to traditional labs. More importantly, it reduces human interference, human error, and even data falsification," he said.
Thanks to the improved ecological and environmental supervision capabilities, the number of environmental violation cases nationwide has decreased from 130,000 five years ago to 43,000 last year, representing a decline of 68 percent, Huang said.
The minister said China has already applied environmental DNA technology in the biodiversity monitoring work.
"In the field of biodiversity monitoring, monitoring aquatic organisms remains a weak point. However, significant progress has been made in recent years as we have developed environmental DNA technology. Although this chip is very small in size, it contains DNA detection information for aquatic organisms, including the finless porpoise and the Chinese sucker, from 19 state-controlled sections in the Jiangsu segment of the Yangtze River. The results showed that over the past five years, more than 20 species of aquatic organisms have increased in this river section, fully demonstrating the tangible effectiveness of the ten-year fishing ban in the Yangtze River," Huang said while showing a chip to reporters.
The 14th NPC, China's national legislature, concluded its fourth session on Thursday.
Smart technologies reshape China's ecological, environmental monitoring system: minister
