2026-02-20 06:00
publication
2026-02-20 06:00
In Saudi Arabia, the city of The Line was being built in the form of actually one building, 170 km long and only 200 m wide. It was supposed to be the jewel in the crown of the Saudis, a show of their financial power. Two years ago, the world was informed that the idea was stunting. Now the great project is relegated to… a technology hub in the desert.
So beautiful, Saudi, it's a pity… The Line was to be built in the north-west of the kingdom, which is described as “particularly dry”. A single-building vertical city composed of smaller modules assembled like blocks connected by pedestrian platforms will ultimately accommodate 9 million inhabitants. It will be 200 meters wide and 170 km long. The super-smart city would have mirror walls that would reflect the surrounding desert. The Line project was in line with the assumptions of modern urban planning, which has sustainable development as one of its main goals. Car traffic in the city will be excluded, and everything needed by residents will be within a five-minute walk. However, that's where the projects ended.
First reports of serious delays. According to the first announcements, within a decade up to 1.5 million inhabitants lived there. In 2024, the Saudis slowed down, because by that date it could accommodate 300,000. people. According to forecasts, it was to extend to a “modest” 2.4 km. Then “The Telegraph” indicated that the Saudis were having problems finding foreign investors.
Neom changes its destiny: instead of for people, it will be created for machines
It is now known that Saudi Arabia is withdrawing from the futuristic vision of the Neom project, deciding to transform The Line concept into a giant server farm. According to the Financial Times, an annual financial audit forced Prince Mohammed bin Salman to drastically reduce the scale of this project – Saudi Arabia will give up its science fiction ambitions to become a much smaller project focused on industrial sectors.
Instead of a bustling city of the future, Neom is intended to become the utilitarian foundation of Saudi ambitions in the field of AI. This decision results from a simple calculation – sea water will provide cheap cooling for IT systems. As a result, the ambitious urban project was reduced to the level of a server farm, whose only advantage is its picturesque location by the water.
Thus, the laws of physics and economics have finally broken through the walls of the innovative Saudi Vision 2030, a country transformation program aimed at reducing Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil and transforming the country into a more modern society. They were also supposed to attract tourists with the investments. Now you just need to try to recover at least some of the costs incurred.
The money went… but to a palace for the prince
Financing, among others: The Line was dealt with by the Saudi government ($500 billion) and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (a sovereign wealth fund chaired by Prince bin Salman), as well as local and international investors. The latter, however, were not very willing to reach for their checkbooks. Initially, the cost of building the Line was estimated at up to $1 trillion. After the audit, the Wall Street Journal reported that the project management engaged in conscious financial manipulation to hide the galloping expenses.
It turned out that the final amount could amount to USD 8.8 trillion, or more than 25 times the annual budget of Saudi Arabia. It is therefore not surprising that the heavy equipment has been withdrawn (for now), leaving only gigantic excavations in the desert. Therefore, as the media suspects, the money reserved for The Linie contributed to the budget of another construction project – a luxurious palace complex consisting of 16 residences and a golf course.
Even the Crown Prince himself, who lobbied for The Line, officially withdrew from the original assumptions, calling the failure a “strategic pivot”. Before the Shura Council, he declared his readiness to cancel any goal in the name of greater necessity.
The dream of a futuristic civilization ends with the accompaniment of refrigerators in halls filled with processors. The Neom project, teetering on the verge of science fiction from the beginning, was ultimately brought down to the ground by the brutal logic of profit and loss.
Calibration of Vision 2030, i.e. the end of dreams about snow in the desert
It wasn't just The Line that failed when it came to profitability. The Trojena resort loses its status as the host of the 2029 Asian Winter Games. After a brutal collision with reality, the project will be drastically reduced. The Kingdom's authorities admit that instead of fighting the laws of nature, they must focus on “sustainable economic impact”, which in practice means retreating from the most unprofitable ideas.
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