Just last year in May of 2024, the major Chinese tech company Lenovo announced a whopping $2 billion dollar investment towards Alat, a recently founded conglomerate company dedicated towards the clean energy usage for technology production in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The partnership has opened doors, with Lenovo expanding their global presence now in the Middle East and Africa, and Alat working towards Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030—a transformation program launched in 2016. Vision 2030 highlights Saudi Arabia’s goals to be completed by 2030 in 3 stages targeting reforms in the public sector and economy, sustainable and ambitious projects, ending with a focus on sustaining the impact of transformation for the future of the country (Saudi Vision 2030).
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salaman founded Alat on February 1st, 2024, which is now owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. The name “Alat” translates from Arabic to “machine,” in which the company plans to produce 34 categories of tech products including computers, servers, green buildings, medical services, and semiconductors amongst others. Aside from technological advancements, Alat also boasts their ambitions in sustainability. Its first manufacturing facility is currently being built in Riyadh and will be powered by clean energy after its opening soon in 2026. Following objectives for Vision 2030, Alat predicts and plans to create 39k jobs, receive over $100 billion in investments and estimates to produce $9.3 billion in non-oil GDP for Saudi Arabia, an immense 10% of the country’s current GDP.
Lenovo’s investment marks a new era in sustainability and global partnerships in the technological sector, as Chairman and CEO of Lenovo Yuanqing Yuan states, “Lenovo will have significant resources and financial flexibility to further accelerate our transformation and grow our business by capitalizing on the incredible growth momentum in KSA and the wider [Middle Eastern and African] region” (Lenovo Storyhub). In its investments, Lenovo plans to cultivate and employ Saudi local skill to manufacture solely Saudi-made products while following Alat’s goal in “[reshaping] the Kingdom’s economy and [transforming] global electronics and advanced industrial sectors by decarbonizing manufacturing with clean energy” (Alat).
As further investments and global partnerships arise in persisting with the further advancement in the tech sector, Lenovo and Alat are only one of the first partnerships valuing sustainability in the beginning of many to come. Today, sustainability is quickly deviating from being an individual goal to the collective norm for companies.
Sources
https://alat.com/en/about/what-is-alat
https://sustainabilitymag.com/articles/inside-lenovos-usbn-deal-with-saudi-manufacturer-alat
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