PARIS — The head of Saudi state oil company Aramco's venture capital arm said on Thursday that he foresees a boom in the kingdom’s emerging technology and retail sectors, despite the industries accounting for a small share of the country's startup investment today.

What happened: Speaking on a panel at the fourth annual Vision Golfe event in Paris on Thursday, Anas Alqahtani, chief executive officer of Aramco’s $500 million venture capital subsidiary Wa’ed Ventures, said that he expects strong growth in Saudi Arabia’s emerging technology and retail sectors over the coming years. Emerging technologies include fields such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, quantum computing, robotics and renewable energy.

“Traditionally, our venture capital market focused more on sectors such as fintech, e-commerce, enterprise software and so on, but I think we are seeing today the next wave of growth is really emerging technologies and retail,” Alqahtani said.

Saudi venture capital funding has historically been concentrated in fintech, e-commerce and software, while deep-tech sectors such as AI, semiconductors, quantum computing and advanced robotics have represented only a small fraction of total startup investment. Retail technology also remains a relatively modest segment of the kingdom’s startup ecosystem despite the broader retail market's rapid expansion alongside population growth and rising consumer spending. According to research by Invest Riyadh, AI and deep tech accounted for about 5.3% of 2024's Saudi VC funding value and 14.7% for e-commerce/retail tech, versus 28% for fintech.