---
title: "Crown Prince unveils NEOM, a $500bn tech-led megacity zone"
url: "https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/neom-announced-fii-2017"
language: "en"
event_date: "2017-10-24"
published: "2026-10-03"
last_verified: "2026-10-03"
category: "Giga-projects"
publisher: "Cicada (cicadaconsultancy.online)"
license: "CC BY 4.0"
---

# Crown Prince unveils NEOM, a $500bn tech-led megacity zone

- Event date: 24 October 2017 (2017-10-24)
- Topic: Giga-projects
- In this story: NEOM, PIF, Mohammed bin Salman, FII
- URL: https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/neom-announced-fii-2017

At the first Future Investment Initiative, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced NEOM, a planned business and industrial zone of about 26,500 square kilometers on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The government, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and international investors were expected to contribute more than $500 billion, with sectors including energy and water, biotechnology, food, advanced manufacturing and entertainment. NEOM later became the host of the Kingdom's cognitive-technology ambitions and, through Oxagon, of a planned AI data center campus.

## Key figures

- planned investment: $500 bn
- area: 26,500 km²

## Sources

1. [Saudi unveils $500bn plan to develop border region with Jordan, Egypt](https://gulfbusiness.com/en/2017/economy/saudi-unveils-500bn-plan-develop-border-region-jordan-egypt) — Gulf Business, 2017-10-24
2. [Saudi Crown Prince launches NEOM, a '$500bn investment in the future'](https://english.alarabiya.net/business/economy/2017/10/24/Saudi-Crown-Prince-announces-launch-of-NEOM-destination-for-the-future-.html) — Al Arabiya English, 2017-10-24

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

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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