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China, US deals and robots headline Saudi Arabia's LEAP tech event

China's Huawei, Hectar, Lenovo were among major deals reached at Saudi's flagship technology event. 

LEAP technology conference, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 6, 2023.
LEAP technology conference, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 6, 2023. — Twitter

Saudi Arabia’s second LEAP technology event on Tuesday saw a host of landmark partnerships and billion-dollar investments take place with major Chinese and US companies, in line with the last phase of the country’s national strategy for digital transformation. 

On the first day of the event on Monday, the country announced $9 billion of investments in global companies, including Oracle, China's Huawei and Meta, to work with the kingdom, and at least $2.43 billion more on day two were injected into local technology businesses and more to stimulate market growth. 

Among some of the major deals was the announcement on Tuesday of a future Saudi-Chinese social media application named Hectar, which claimed to be able to compete with other “important social media applications.” 

The app is being positioned as a high-security all-in-one application that, in addition to sharing videos and photos, will provide content creators with gifts, support and opportunities to monetize from followers. 

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