SAMI and General Authority for Defence Development Unveil Groundbreaking $177 Million Initiatives
Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) alongside the General Authority for Defence Development (GADD) have proclaimed the initiation of two initiatives valued at $177.03 million aimed at enhancing the localisation of defence innovation within the kingdom, according to the Saudi state news agency.
The initiatives are set to span over four years and are described as “the inaugural set of GADD’s incentive programmes for the industry,” as reported by the SPA news agency.
Through these new initiatives, SAMI will collaborate with various national development centres and Saudi universities to assist in designing and ultimately industrialising the results of their defence innovation efforts to cater to the needs of military and security organizations.
The two initiatives will encompass grants allocated by GADD for research in specified areas and the establishment of dedicated facilities to bolster related technological advancement.
As part of these new initiatives, SAMI will partner with diverse national development centres and Saudi academic institutions to aid in designing and ultimately manufacturing outcomes from their defence innovation projects, fulfilling the requirements of military and security bodies.
“The authority aims to direct defence innovation activities within national development centres and universities toward the expectations of defence and security end users,” stated Dr. Faleh Al-Sulaiman, Governor of GADD.
Additionally, the Governor highlighted the importance of investing in national universities that possess qualified professionals to support local defence innovation in the Kingdom.
“This support intends to leverage national capabilities to locally develop various defence systems such as Software Defined Radio (SDR) systems and Surveillance and Reconnaissance technologies for Anti-UAV Defence systems,” remarked Dr. Hatim Behairy, Assistant for Technology Planning at GADD.
The CEO of SAMI, Walid Abukhaled, commented that this support demonstrates SAMI’s leading role in the localisation of the defence sector, noting that the outcomes of these initiatives will yield significant results over the upcoming four years, aligning with Saudi Vision 2030’s ambition of achieving 50% localisation of defence expenditure by 2030.
