NEOM, Mohammed bin Salman's trillion-dollar project, could combine luxury and totalitarian surveillance, researchers are warning.
But behind the outlandish plan, which was developed by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is a potentially much darker reality.NEOM
China has already provided surveillance technology for the creation of so-called "safe cities", run on user data, in Egypt and Serbia, a report by the Washington Institute think tank found.Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman announces the zero-carbon city on January 10, 2021.NEOM, the so-called zero-carbon city of the future, is the centerpiece of the crown prince's attempt to modernize the country and reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
"NEOM is designed to leapfrog those [other smart cities], to begin from the ground up in sort of an entirely designed fashion to collect data and use that data for the purposes of the city," he said. Last December, the crown prince welcomed Xi to Saudi Arabia for a lavish summit, where the leaders announced cooperation across a broad range of issues,It appeared to be the beginning of a fruitful partnership for Crown Prince Mohammed. In Xi, experts say, he found a leader who shares his conviction that technology can enable them to expand their economies while relinquishing none of their authoritarian control.
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