RIYADH, Saudi Arabia & SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 21, 2026--
Echelon, the Riyadh-based technology company driving AI transformation across the Middle East, and Applied Intuition, Inc., the leading physical AI company, today announced a business development partnership to bring Applied Intuition's physical AI platform to Saudi Arabia.
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Echelon partners with leading global technology companies to bring frontier technology to the Kingdom and drive AI transformation across the Middle East. The company provides local development, customizations and ecosystem integration, helping ensure the Kingdom both builds and deploys its own tech while partnering with top industry leaders worldwide. Echelon also embeds forward deployed engineers with its partners and customers, building the local engineering capability to run AI systems in production.
"Saudi Arabia has an opportunity not simply to adopt physical AI, but to help define how it is deployed at national scale," said Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud, Founder and Managing Director of Echelon. "Ever since I met with the team at Applied Intuition, I have been excited about what their physical AI stack can unlock here. Applied Intuition brings one of the world's most advanced platforms, and we will develop Saudi talent and deploy it across the industries that matter most to Saudi Arabia."
Applied Intuition builds the software and digital infrastructure that make moving machines intelligent and autonomous across industries such as mining, construction and automotive, including in cars, robotaxis and trucks. Applied Intuition’s platform, deployed globally, will form the technical foundation and positions Saudi Arabia to build intelligent infrastructure into its logistics network from the ground up.
"Saudi Arabia is making one of the world's biggest investments in physical AI," said Qasar Younis, co-founder and CEO of Applied Intuition. "Deploying at national scale takes partners who know how to build on the ground. Echelon is critical in helping to shape the future of physical AI in the Kingdom.”
As part of its long-term commitment to Saudi Arabia, Applied Intuition has established a regional office in Riyadh and is hiring locally. Applied Intuition and Echelon will also work towards positioning the country as a global hub for research into autonomous driving for the logistics industry.
About Echelon
Founded in Saudi Arabia, Echelon is a global AI operator driving transformation across the Kingdom; taking the world's most advanced AI capabilities and translating them into real-world impact. Through a distinctive operating model that combines local development, ecosystem integration, and strategic market activation, Echelon enables organizations and nations to adopt, scale, and operationalize AI in ways that strengthen performance, accelerate innovation, and enhance national competitiveness. Learn more at echelon.inc or press@echelon.inc
About Applied Intuition
Applied Intuition is building the technology to make a billion machines intelligent. Founded in 2017, the Silicon Valley company powers physical AI in the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries. Applied Intuition is based in Sunnyvale, California, with nearly two dozen offices around the world, including London, Munich, Tokyo, Seoul and the Washington, D.C., metro area. Learn more at applied.co, or email press@applied.co.
*Source:AETOSWire
Echelon and Applied Intuition are partnering to accelerate the adoption of physical AI across Saudi Arabia (Photo: AETOSWire)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are climbing with markets worldwide on Monday after oil prices and yields in the bond market gave back some of their jumps from last week.
The S&P 500 rose 1% and pulled within 0.9% of its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 193 points, or 0.4%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.6% higher.
They got help from the price for a barrel of Brent oil falling 3.4% to $100.29. While that’s still much higher than its roughly $72 price from earlier this summer, it’s down from the nearly $110 it touched last week.
Oil prices are swinging up and down as some crude from the Middle East is able to sail through the Strait of Hormuz, though nowhere nearly as much as the industry and customers would like because of the war with Iran. Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson said another leg higher in prices for oil, gasoline and other refined products is the main risk he sees in the near term that could keep the U.S. stock market from rising to his forecasted target for the year’s end.
The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline across the United States has already climbed to nearly $4.48, according to AAA. That's up from less than $4.32 just a week earlier and from $3.18 a year ago.
Monday’s pullback in oil prices helped lower the pressure coming from the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.96% from 5.01% late Friday after it crossed above the 5% threshold last week for the first time in three years.
Yields have been on the rise because of worries about inflation, big debt loads for governments worldwide and other factors. That hurts the economy because high yields make it more expensive not only for the U.S. government to borrow money to pay its bills but also for households and businesses.
Worries remain about how much oil is available for customers worldwide, ING commodities strategists Ewa Manthey and Warren Patterson wrote in a commentary on Monday. However, they said profit-taking by investors after the recent jump in oil prices, together with hopes for constructive discussions at this week’s U.N. General Assembly and at a meeting between China’s and the United States’ leaders, helped improve optimism.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters following talks Sunday with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York that the U.S. had “a very successful engagement” with the Chinese side. Bessent said talks with China touched on trade and AI. China and the United States have been discussing reciprocal tariff reductions on $30 billion worth of goods from each side.
In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday confirmed that Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to the United States between Sept. 23 and 25. Experts and policymakers believe trade, tariffs, and AI safety are likely among the topics to be on the agenda. The war in Iran and developments in the Middle East and ties between China and Iran could also be discussed.
On Wall Street, stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry continued to stabilize following their worldwide slide at the start of last week. Leaders of the AI industry have recently warned a slowdown is needed in the industry’s development for the safety of humanity.
Advanced Micro Devices rallied 9.4% and could finish the day with a total market value above $1 trillion, while Nvidia added 1.2%.
Stocks enmeshed in the cryptocurrency industry, meanwhile, rallied after bitcoin's price rose back above $85,000 and returned to where it was in January. Coinbase Global jumped 5.2%, and Robinhood Markets rose 3.2%.
Stock indexes around the world also climbed thanks to the easing of oil prices and bond yields. Indexes gained 1.1% in France, 1.2% in Hong Kong and 1.6% in South Korea.
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) in the foreign exchange dealing room at the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work in the foreign exchange dealing room at the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A screen shows the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) in the foreign exchange dealing room at the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
