Naver Wins Digital Twin Platform Project for 5 Saudi Cities

Exporting 'Technology Platform' to the Middle East Following Asia, North America, and Europe
Utilized for Urban Planning, Monitoring, and Flood Prediction

Naver is signing a business agreement with the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing and the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia. (Photo by Naver)

Naver is expanding its business to the Middle East following Asia, North America, and Europe. It has signaled its entry into the Middle East by successfully securing a digital twin project contract from Saudi Arabia.

On the 24th, Naver announced that it has been entrusted by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing to build a national-level digital twin platform, targeting five cities including the capital Riyadh.

This project is significant as it marks Naver's first large-scale Middle East business and represents a case where a Korean IT company is solely responsible for building a cloud-based digital twin platform, an essential infrastructure for smart city development. For the project, Naver will continuously explore collaboration opportunities and act as a channel between the Saudi Arabian and Korean governments. Naver Labs will focus on advancing cutting-edge technology, while Naver Cloud will support stable cloud technology and business, pooling all capabilities.

This initiative began when Naver participated as part of ‘One Team Korea’ led by the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in November last year, establishing ties with Saudi Arabia. In March, Naver signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing for national digital transformation. In October, key Saudi government officials, including Abdullah Al-Sawaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, visited Naver’s second headquarters '1784' to continue exchanges.

With this project contract, Naver will build and operate a cloud-based 3D digital modeling digital twin platform over five years for five Saudi cities: Riyadh, Medina, Jeddah, Dammam, and Mecca. Saudi Arabia plans to utilize this platform for ▲urban planning ▲monitoring ▲flood prediction, among other uses. This means that a leading Korean IT company will build public digital services directly related to the daily lives of Saudi citizens from the initial stage and will also operate the services going forward.

Naver evaluated this as highly meaningful, proving the technological competitiveness of Korea’s leading IT company in next-generation future city construction fields such as smart cities worldwide. In a technology comparison among leading global companies conducted by the Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing, Naver was recognized for producing the fastest and most scalable digital twin outcomes.

In particular, Naver expects to grow the ecosystem by collaborating with local Saudi institutions and startups as well as domestic related organizations. The cloud-based digital twin platform that Naver will build in Saudi Arabia is an open platform accessible to startups and specialized institutions. Various services can emerge, including smart city design through simulators, urban asset management, immersive real estate, service robots, autonomous mobility, road-level traffic information, and AI maps. In fact, LX and Korea Water Resources Corporation, which have each signed MOUs with Naver, are also contributing to the digital twin platform construction, and further collaboration partners are expected to expand.

Naver plans to establish a local subsidiary in Saudi Arabia and build a cloud region in the Middle East based on this project. Alongside this, ongoing discussions on using Naver’s ultra-large-scale AI and cloud to address policy issues of the Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing are expected to accelerate.

Furthermore, Naver intends to accelerate its technology-based global expansion through this project. Having set a new global milestone by exporting B2G and B2B IT technology in the Middle East, it plans to intensify comprehensive global offensives in services and technology going forward.

Chae Seon-ju, Head of Naver’s External and ESG Policy, stated, "We deeply appreciate the hard work and sweat of our predecessors who laid the foundation of the economic powerhouse Republic of Korea through construction plant exports," adding, "We will lead a second Middle East export boom based on solid IT technology with global competitiveness."

Meanwhile, Naver’s Saudi Arabia digital twin platform construction project was realized alongside a state visit by an economic delegation to Saudi Arabia. It became the first export of the ‘Digital Platform Government,’ a national strategic industry and public-private collaboration platform model.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.