Saudi Arabia is attempting something no major industrial economy has done before: compressing decades of industrialisation into a single generation powered not by low-cost labour, but by energy scale, automation, and strategic alignment with Chinese industrial and technology ecosystems.

At the center of this experiment lies a critical question: can energy abundance—cheap, reliable, and increasingly clean—replace the traditional foundations of manufacturing power? As the Kingdom positions itself as an energy-anchored manufacturing hub between East and West, this fireside chat examines whether Saudi Arabia is building true industrial sovereignty—or a new model of globally integrated production.

This conversation explores:

• Energy as the core competitive advantage in next-generation manufacturing
• What China’s industrial experience reveals about speed, scale, and state coordination
• Whether automation and AI can eliminate the “learning curve” of industrial development
• The risks of becoming an assembly platform versus owning the full industrial stack
• How geopolitics, energy security, and supply chains reshape where manufacturing lives next