Riyadh (UNA/SPA) - The President of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), Dr. Abdullah bin Sharaf Al-Ghamdi, stressed that harnessing the power of data and artificial intelligence has contributed to accelerating progress and building a greener and more resilient world, through digital transformation and innovation in the field of artificial intelligence, which has had a great environmental impact, as 150 million sheets of paper were saved, 1.5 billion liters of water were preserved, carbon dioxide emissions were reduced by the equivalent of one million trees, and an average of 20 working days were provided annually for each citizen through digital services.
This came in a speech he delivered at the Saudi Green Initiative Forum, which is being held on the sidelines of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (COP16) in Riyadh.
“Today, the planet faces unprecedented challenges, from record temperatures to escalating climate risks that threaten global stability. At this historic moment, the Kingdom, led by His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, is moving forward with vision and determination, leading efforts towards a sustainable future. At the heart of these transformative efforts is the Saudi Green Initiative, a comprehensive national strategy that includes more than eighty initiatives aimed at reducing carbon emissions, expanding green spaces, and protecting our environment,” he said.
He added that SDAIA is monitoring 4 billion square meters of urban areas in Riyadh by analyzing 540 gigabytes of satellite imagery data that is updated annually through the National Smart Cities Platform (SmartC) as part of the tasks assigned to SDAIA as the national reference for data and artificial intelligence.
During his speech, he touched on the most prominent digital services that contributed to the digital transformation of government services and empowering citizens through many government platforms, such as: the comprehensive national application (Tawakkalna), which serves more than 32 million users and successfully processes up to (1) billion transactions per day, the unified national access platform (Nafath), which processes more than (3) billion digital transactions, which contributed to saving about 260 thousand visits to service centers per day, the national platform for charitable work (Ehsan), which contributes to implementing 1150 environmental projects in partnership with 480 charitable societies, and the government cloud (Deem), which integrated 260 data centers, which led to reducing energy consumption by 64 megawatts, which contributed to eliminating an estimated 600 thousand tons of carbon emissions.
He touched on the success achieved by the Center of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence in Environment, Water and Agriculture (AIEWA), which developed models that support our ambitious initiative to plant 10 billion trees, and the Artificial Intelligence Center for Energy (AICE) by developing emission monitoring systems, which in turn helped industrial sectors reduce their environmental impact, and contributes to the Saudi Green Initiative to reduce carbon emissions by 278 million tons annually by 2030.
He pointed out that artificial intelligence has contributed to the development of the renewable energy sector, and this innovation is an important step that supports the Kingdom's vision to achieve its ambitious goal of shifting to renewable energy sources by 50% by 2030.
He concluded his speech by calling on everyone to join the Kingdom’s efforts to preserve a prosperous planet for the benefit of humanity, stressing SDAIA’s commitment to enhancing the use of data and artificial intelligence in cooperation with all stakeholders from the public and private sectors.
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