---
title: "Cabinet designates 2026 as Saudi Arabia's 'Year of Artificial Intelligence'"
url: "https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/year-of-ai-2026-cabinet"
language: "en"
event_date: "2026-03-10"
published: "2026-10-03"
last_verified: "2026-10-03"
category: "Policy"
publisher: "Cicada (cicadaconsultancy.online)"
license: "CC BY 4.0"
---

# Cabinet designates 2026 as Saudi Arabia's 'Year of Artificial Intelligence'

- Event date: 10 March 2026 (2026-03-10)
- Topic: Policy
- In this story: Council of Ministers, Mohammed bin Salman, SDAIA
- URL: https://cicadaconsultancy.online/en/news/year-of-ai-2026-cabinet

The Council of Ministers, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by video conference on Tuesday 10 March 2026, designated 2026 the Year of Artificial Intelligence. The initiative is organized around six pillars: aspiration, skills, policies, investment, innovation and ecosystem growth, with the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) leading the shift from strategy to large-scale implementation. Cited year-to-date moves included a national AI workforce program, a mandatory university AI curriculum, the Hexagon data center, Aramco Digital's 450 MHz industrial network and accession to the Global Partnership on AI.

## Key figures

- pillars: 6

## Sources

1. [Saudi designates 2026 as Year of Artificial Intelligence](https://www.middleeastainews.com/p/saudi-designates-2026-as-year-of) — Middle East AI News, 2026-03-10
2. [Saudi Arabia designates 2026 the Year of Artificial Intelligence](https://www.arabnews.com/node/2636061/amp) — Arab News

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