RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund plans to spend heavily in the semiconductor and space industries this year, according to the minister of communications and information technology. Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Abdullah Al-Swaha said the Public Investment Fund intends to make a “sizable investment” as part of the Kingdom’s diversification drive away from oil. “They plan to make an announcement on a particular champion within the space to lead the Saudi efforts,” the minister said in an interview reported by Bloomberg. He also said that the fund aims to establish a national space company, focused on investing in and acquiring assets within the sector, highlighting that the industry is “ripe right now” for mergers and acquisitions. PIF had a series of successful launches and purposeful partnerships, consolidating its position as one of the world’s largest sovereign funds with over $700 billion in assets under management and plans to expand this to SR4 trillion ($1 trillion) by the end of 2025. The plan aims to expand downstream sectors, such as semiconductor and battery manufacturing. “The new space economy is definitely the next trillion-dollar opportunity,” Al-Swaha said. He added: “The Kingdom is very bullish on not only becoming a regional leader in this space but also a global leader. The ambition by 2030 is to definitely establish regional leadership and then move on by 2040 to global leadership.” The focus of Saudi Arabia’s space investments, according to Alswaha, will be on helping get the 2.6 billion people in 2024 who are “not connected” plugged into the global communications infrastructure. “The only way to connect the unconnected is from the skies,” the minister said, according to Bloomberg. Al-Swaha, who is also the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s Space Agency, expressed confidence in the Kingdom’s ability to attract investments from both US and Chinese technology companies, despite the escalating tensions between the two nations. The Kingdom “has demonstrated our partnership with both East and West on protecting their intellectual property and patents and any potential technology leakage,” he continued. Al-Swaha added that Saudi Arabia is “pro-investment, pro-partnership and open market … anybody that complies with our regulatory, security requirements, serves our national interest, we will work with.”