---
title: "SDAIA launches SAMAI 2 and 40 AI academic programs at ICAN 2026"
url: "https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/ican-2026-samai-2-academic-programmes"
language: "en"
event_date: "2026-01-28"
published: "2026-10-03"
last_verified: "2026-10-03"
category: "Talent"
publisher: "Cicada (cicadaconsultancy.online)"
license: "CC BY 4.0"
---

# SDAIA launches SAMAI 2 and 40 AI academic programs at ICAN 2026

- Event date: 28 January 2026 (2026-01-28)
- Topic: Talent
- In this story: SDAIA, SAMAI 2, Ministry of Education, King Saud University
- URL: https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/ican-2026-samai-2-academic-programmes

At the International Conference on Data and AI Capacity Building (ICAN 2026) at King Saud University, Education Minister Yousef Al-Benyan and Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) President Abdullah Alghamdi launched SAMAI 2 with 11 government ministries, aimed at upskilling the government workforce of about 1.2 million people and building on SAMAI 1's 1.1 million trainees. The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that they also launched 40 specialized academic programs in data and AI across 14 public and private universities. The conference theme was the future of education and work in the AI era.

## Key figures

- government workforce targeted: 1,200,000 people
- SAMAI 1 trainees: 1,100,000 people
- academic programmes: 40

## Sources

1. [Saudi Arabia launches SAMAI 2 workforce AI initiative](https://www.middleeastainews.com/p/saudi-arabia-launches-samai-2-workforce) — Middle East AI News, 2026-01-29
2. [Education Minister, SDAIA President Launch 40 Academic Programs in Data, AI](https://spa.gov.sa/en/N2500123) — Saudi Press Agency (SPA)

Archive report. Written in 2026 from contemporary sources and dated to the day the event happened.

---

Cicada · The signal in Saudi AI.
License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) · Full archive for language models: https://cicadaconsultancy.online/llms-full.txt