Gulf

1. PIF’s big gaming bet…
2. …and Saudi EV plans
3. Trump tower in Jeddah
4. Middle East power crunch
5. Kuwait’s population shrinks
6. Saudi, Qatar back Syria
7. Arab News leans in on AI

You thought Dubai’s $20 chocolate bar was excessive? Now there’s a $1.25 million ‘Dubai Dress.’

Saudi levels up in EA bid

Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to become a global gaming hub could take another leap forward as its giant sovereign wealth fund backs a planned $50 billion deal to take Electronic Arts private. Public Investment Fund is part of a consortium with Silver Lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners working to buy the developer behind Madden NFL, the soccer juggernaut EA Sports FC, and The Sims, The Wall Street Journal first reported.

If the deal goes through, PIF would add to a roster that includes Pokémon Go and Scopely, the maker of Monopoly Go!, which its unit Savvy Games acquired for $4.9 billion in 2023. PIF already owns a roughly 10% stake in EA.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has made gaming a key sector to diversify the Saudi economy, part of a wider tech push spanning AI and electronics manufacturing. Riyadh hosts the Esports World Cup, and last week, PIF’s AI arm HUMAIN launched a laptop in partnership with chipmaker Qualcomm that runs a custom operating system focused on “agentic AI,” which runs with limited human supervision.

Lucid to sell Saudi EVs next year

Electric carmaker Lucid will be manufacturing vehicles in Saudi Arabia by December 2026, a key part of the kingdom’s plans to become an auto hub, create jobs, and boost non-oil exports. The announcement marks a shift from assembling imported kits to selling fully Saudi-made cars.

Lucid, majority-owned by Public Investment Fund, opened its first international facility outside the US two years ago near Jeddah. The site is the anchor for the King Salman Automotive Cluster that is also set to include a Hyundai plant and a facility for Ceer, a PIF-owned EV maker that is working on designs for its own cars. Officials expect companies in the new auto hub to contribute a cumulative 92 billion riyals ($24.5 billion) to the Saudi economy by 2035.

Silicon Valley-based Lucid needs the continued support of PIF to cover losses and fund the development of new models.

— Matthew Martin

Another Trump tower in Saudi

US President Donald Trump’s business empire has another Saudi project: a $1 billion real estate development in Jeddah. The Trump Organization and Dar Global, a London-listed subsidiary of a Saudi developer, said they would partner on a second project in the coastal city following the launch of a Trump Tower in December. The new development, Trump Plaza Jeddah, will be a mixed-use real estate site around a green spine inspired by New York’s Central Park, Dar Global said in a statement.

The tie-up is the latest in a series of deals in the Middle East by the Trump Organization since the US president’s reelection last year, including Trump-branded towers in Doha, Dubai, and Riyadh.

Power surge threatens energy exports

The loss in energy export revenue by 2035 if Middle East and North African countries fail to accelerate renewables deployment to meet power demand, according to the International Energy Agency. Electricity demand in the region has tripled since 2000, fueled by rising populations and incomes, and is set to grow another 50% over the next decade, adding the equivalent of Germany and Spain’s current consumption combined. Gas imports would have to rise by $20 billion over the next decade to fill the gap, the IEA estimates.

Cooling and desalination are driving growth, along with urbanization, industrialization, electrifying transport, and data centers. Governments are pushing to replace oil-fired plants with gas, nuclear, and renewables — solar capacity is on track to rise tenfold, the Paris-based agency said.

Kuwait sheds migrant workers

Kuwait’s expat population is estimated to have shrunk 1.6% in 2024, the first drop outside wartime or pandemic shocks, according to Justin Alexander, director of US-based consultancy Khalij Economics. The decline appears driven by tighter immigration enforcement and could affect the country’s efforts to diversify its economy.

Cutting foreign labor has long been a popular demand in Kuwait: The country is undergoing a regulatory overhaul since Emir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad dissolved parliament in 2024, with reforms accompanied by purging citizenships the government says were fraudulently obtained, though rights groups say political opponents have also been targeted. The latest population estimates don’t include most of the 50,000 people stripped of citizenship in recent months. Alexander predicts the country’s population could fall by a further 2% this year.

Qatar, Saudi pay Syria salaries

Qatar and Saudi Arabia pledged $89 million to cover Syrian government workers’ salaries, the latest in a series of Gulf initiatives aimed at stabilizing the war-torn country. Working with the UN Development Programme, the funds will pay part of Syrian public-sector wages and support essential services for three months. Doha is also financing Azeri gas imports through Türkiye to ease crippling power cuts in northern Syria. Gulf countries — led by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE — have pledged more than $10 billion in reconstruction projects and aid since the overthrow of the Assad regime in December. Riyadh and Doha settled Syria’s World Bank arrears this year.

Arab News taps AI for global reach

Saudi Arabia’s oldest English-language daily will translate its coverage into 50 languages using tech from Dubai-based CAMB.AI. The project echoes the founding of Arab News in 1975, when Prince Turki Al-Faisal — son of the king at the time, who went on to be Saudi’s intelligence chief and ambassador to the UK and the US — helped establish the newspaper as a tool to explain Saudi views to the West.

Today, Riyadh’s ambitions extend well beyond English and Arabic audiences. CAMB.AI’s model promises to preserve cultural nuance and local idioms, eliminating the need to hire large editorial teams worldwide. Editor-in-Chief Faisal Abbas, a Semafor contributor, said the initiative aims to make Arab News articles accessible to 6.5 billion people.

Diplomacy

• Negotiations to end the war in Gaza are in the “final stages,” US President Donald Trump told Axios. The White House’s 21-point plan sets out a path to return Israel’s hostages in Gaza, remove Hamas from governing the territory, and provide a path toward Palestinian statehood. “The Arab world wants peace, Israel wants peace, and Bibi wants peace,” Trump said. — Axios
• Saudi Arabia pledged $90 million to support the Palestinian Authority, and the kingdom’s foreign minister said the funding is part of an international coalition to support a Palestinian state which will be a prerequisite for “normalization with Israel.” — Saudi Gazette
• Analysts warn that the reimposed sanctions on Iran could see Tehran escalate threats to Gulf shipping lanes and energy supplies, while also pushing Gulf states to strengthen defense ties with China. — Azure Strategy

Mining

• China Geological Survey has mapped 4,600 sites in Saudi Arabia with potential for mineral exploration, a boon for the kingdom’s plan to exploit what it says are $2.5 trillion of resources including transition metals and rare earths. — China Daily

Tech

• OpenAI’s Sam Altman was in the UAE to accept an honorary doctorate from Abu Dhabi’s Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the first conferred by the research university and witnessed by Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed.
• Saudi Arabia is seeking to strengthen ties to China, India, Japan, and South Korea as its domestic AI industry takes shape, according to Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih. “We don’t want to be just US-centric,” he said. — Nikkei Asia
• Dubai greenlit regulations governing autonomous trucks, covering licensing and technology trials as the emirate looks to boost efficiency in logistics, a key sector in the UAE’s diversification push.

A Guinness World Record holder and worth its weight in gold? Must be from Dubai. Indeed, the “Dubai Dress” has the hallmarks of its namesake: the 22-pound, 21-carat gold creation — valued at 4.6 million dirhams ($1.25 million) — was entered into the Guinness World Records as the world’s heaviest gold dress. Crafted by Riyadh’s Al Romaizan Gold & Jewelry Co., which dates back to the 1950s, the look is more ensemble than gown, featuring a crown, earrings, a traditional heyar headpiece, and a necklace hefty enough to double as body armor. The piece is hanging, heavily, in Sharjah this week at the Middle East Watch and Jewelry Show.