Thales and the Royal Commission for AlUla sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for smart and sustainable city development
The French group Thales has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with The Royal Commission for AlUla – the remarkable natural and cultural heritage destination in north-west Saudi Arabia – to implement its smart and sustainable city.
With a strong track record in delivering solutions that support smart, livable and sustainable cities, Thales will provide the Royal Commission with innovation excellence, technological expertise and global experience to support the ambition of becoming a global benchmark destination in sustainable development and as a place to visit, live and work.
The development of AlUla encompasses a broad range of initiatives across archaeology, tourism, culture, education and the arts, reflecting the ambitious commitment to cultivate tourism and leisure in Saudi Arabia set out in the national Vision 2030 transformation program.
Drawing on its experience in complex, high-tech programmes and its expertise with the latest digital tools, Thales’s smart city solutions help authorities and operators optimise the management of sites, public spaces and the services offered to residents and visitors.
By harnessing technologies such as Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, Thales offers complete and scalable solutions to large areas seeking to improve the efficiency of their cities.
Mobility, conservation of natural resources, safety and security, crisis management, energy management and other functions all rely on systems requiring an extensive network of specifically designed sensors. Thales’s digital platform fuses, analyses and aggregates this information to meet the specific requirements and operating constraints of each customer. By doing so, Thales’ solution combines all the information to provide meaningful insights and improve the customer’s operations.
The Royal Commission for AlUla and Thales will work within a co-construction framework to make AlUla a unique model of economic, social and environmental development with the best standards in the fields of security, sustainability and well-being for the city and its inhabitants.
“This Memorandum of Understanding, signed through the French Agency for AlUla Development, demonstrates the multi-sectoral and high-level expertise we are making available to the Royal Commission for AlUla. We are fully committed within the framework of the intergovernmental agreement of 10 April 2018, alongside the Royal Commission for AlUla to make the development of AlUla County and its openness a global reference.” Gérard Mestrallet, Executive Chairman of AFALULA
“As guardians of a unique location featuring a UNESCO world heritage site, our goal is to responsibly and sustainably regenerate the cultural and natural landscape of AlUla for future visitors and to improve quality of life and liveability for AlUla’s residents. Delivering a smart, safe and sustainable city is implicit
in achieving our ambition” Amr AlMadani, CEO, Royal Commission for AlUla
“We are honoured to be part of this exceptional project, to contribute to the quality of life of the inhabitants, to the development of this unique tourist destination and to the stimulation of the local economy.To take part in all the development life cycle of AlUla, Thales will mobilize and federate the best-suited companies from KSA and France to create an ecosystem of local players. Thales is committed to transfering knowledge, with the express purpose of developing local competencies for the technologies and services implemented in AlUla.” Pascal Lesaulnier, Chairman and CEO, Thales Saudi Arabia