At this year's Future Investment Initiative meetings of business and political leaders, AI, Saudi Arabia’s gigaprojects and Syria’s economic recovery topped the agenda. A series of major bilateral and trilateral deals were also announced during the Riyadh conference, which wrapped up on Thursday.

Now in its ninth edition, the annual conference — often called “Davos in the Desert” — attracted around 8,500 delegates from nearly 100 countries. Among the senior public figures attending the event were Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and Rwandan President Paul Kagame. US President Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., was seen sitting at the front next to the Saudi crown prince during Sharaa's speech on Wednesday.

Heavy hitters from the business world who attended included US asset manager BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Saudi state-owned energy firm Aramco CEO Amin Nasser, Saudi Public Investment Fund Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, US lender JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and American bank Citi CEO Jane Fraser. 

The summit began with closed-door meetings on Sunday, with panels and keynotes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday was a dedicated investment day, where panels took a back seat and brokering deals was the main focus. Crown Prince Mohammed met Sharaa and Zheng on Wednesday and discussed strengthening bilateral ties. Sharaa also met on Tuesday with executives from major multinationals, including from financier JP Morgan, oil and gas firm TotalEnergies, aviation companies Bombardier and Relative Space as well as hotel group Hilton Worldwide.