RIYADH: The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority participated in a dialogue session on AI capabilities at the 79th UN General Assembly in New York, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Wednesday. The authority’s general manager of strategic partnerships, Rehab Alarfaj, highlighted the Kingdom’s efforts in data and AI, focusing on building national human capacities and its global contributions. Alarfaj said that the authority’s efforts aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the fourth goal on quality education. As part of this, she added, Saudi Arabia organized the National Olympiad for Programming and AI, with more than 260,000 middle and high school students participating, and the first International AI Olympiad, involving 25 countries. She also emphasized alignment with the fifth UN Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality, citing the Elevate program, which trained more than 25,000 women worldwide in AI. Alarfaj stressed the importance of building capacity through training to raise awareness among policymakers and professionals in AI, emphasizing ethical AI practices that Saudi Arabia has embraced. She said that the Kingdom’s data and AI initiatives, including the National Data Bank and Estishraf, an AI-powered decision-making platform, had received international recognition, winning the 2024 WSIS prizes. Alarfaj said that the Riyadh-based International Center for Artificial Intelligence Research and Ethics was leading regional and global AI initiatives, supporting research, promoting AI ethics, coordinating policy development and enhancing capacity-building efforts.