AI adoption could help meet ambitious Vision 2030 targets

May 26, 2025, 7:47 AM

A construction worker wearing a yellow hard hat and safety vest is working on a building site, kneeling on a steel framework. The background shows an unfinished building structure and a crane. — Saudi Arabia's simultaneous projects require huge numbers of construction workers but experts say artificial intelligence could help to reduce labour costs

Saudi Arabia dominates construction
AI can speed up delivery
Projections help reduce waste

Construction companies in Saudi Arabia are increasingly looking to artificial intelligence to reduce waste and speed up delivery times, industry experts say.

AI software is already in use in the country to help speed up the design and development of billions of dollars in projects.

But increased adoption of cutting-edge technology is needed to meet the kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 economic transformation goals, the experts say.

Compared with other sectors, construction has among the lowest adoption rates of technology-based products.

“Even fishing is more digitalised now than construction,” says Yves Padrines, CEO of German software company Nemetschek.

“Saudi Arabia is a huge market which is going to explode with huge potential of growth in terms of construction.”

Supply chain under pressure

Saudi Arabia accounts for more than half the value of the Gulf’s total construction sector and $30 billion of contracts were signed last year alone, according to commercial real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle.

The total value of the Saudi construction market could grow by more than 5 percent per year, from $74 billion in 2025 to as much as $96 billion by the end of the decade, Indian market research and advisory company Mordor Intelligence estimates.

Multiple mega and giga-projects with near-simultaneous delivery dates are putting increased pressure on the country’s construction supply chain, logistics infrastructure and labour resources.

Munich-based Nemetschek, a $14 billion company producing software for construction and project management, says it will soon open an office in Riyadh to serve Saudi Arabia, the wider Middle East and Africa. Its software is already being used on projects including Neom, the $500 billion futuristic city.

Over the coming decade the world’s largest oil exporter will host several global scale events, including the 2029 Asian Winter Games, the 2030 Riyadh Expo and 2034 World Cup. Stadiums for these are either under construction or in design.

The kingdom also wants hotels to add 320,000 rooms by the end of the decade to meet expected demand and is investing billions in road and rail, airports and housing projects.

“Vision 2030 has very ambitious targets,” says Padrines. “Business as usual would make it much harder for a lot of these projects to be successful, to be delivered on time, on quality and at a cost which is not going to explode.”

The cost of ‘rework’

According to a survey by global market research company Ipsos, more than half the contractors working in Saudi Arabia allocate as much as 10 percent of their construction budgets to cover contingencies, including replacing broken materials and redoing work.

Studies suggest that so-called rework can account for about a quarter of total construction costs.

Much of this waste can be countered through the use of AI, which can be used to test design concepts and identify risks early, says Marco Fahd, CEO of construction consultancy Versatile International.

“Technology today allows us to preempt and get the interfaces working together so that we can deal with those before the issues become apparent and evident on site,” he says.

A survey by Versatile International found that half the contractors, consultants and construction project managers in Saudi Arabia see AI as the biggest single factor changing the way their industry works.

In addition, AI may also reduce the need for manpower, an increasingly scarce resource amid all the projects.

AI software allows architects to create designs based on relevant criteria, such as construction cost, location and natural light levels, and replicate existing designs with adjustments for new applications.

AI can also support the use of prefabrication and modular-based construction, where much of the work is completed before it ever makes it to the construction site.

“If we can get it right off-site and then it comes in and just fits into place we’re requiring less labour,” Fahd says. “[That is] labour that the markets just don’t have.”