Wasim Alnahlawi - stock.adobe.co How KAFD is building the digital backbone of Riyadh’s financial district Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Financial District is combining AI, IoT, digital twins, multicloud infrastructure and next-generation connectivity to turn Riyadh’s financial centre into a living testbed for smart city technology Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to establish itself as a global financial and technology hub are increasingly visible in the physical transformation of Riyadh. But at King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD), much of the infrastructure underpinning that transformation is deliberately designed to remain out of sight. Across 1.6 million square metres of mixed-use development, a growing layer of connected infrastructure links buildings, mobility systems, utilities, public spaces and digital services. More than 100,000 assets are monitored in real time. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT) technologies and data analytics are being used to anticipate maintenance requirements, optimise energy consumption and improve day-to-day operations. For Ramez AlFayez, chief information and technology officer at KAFD, this reflects a wider change in the role technology plays win organisations, moving beyond its traditional position as a support function to become an integral part of business strategy. “When I joined KAFD, the district already had a digital infrastructure in place,” he says. “The infrastructure was originally designed to support a modern business district, but our vision was to transform KAFD into one of the world’s leading smart financial districts.” That required KAFD to reassess its technology landscape, modernise core platforms and strengthen integration between systems. Rather than managing individual technologies independently, the aim was to operate the district as a single connected digital ecosystem. Today, smart mobility, building management, energy systems, public spaces and digital infrastructure feed into a centralised smart city platform. This integrates with AI-enabled systems including IBM Maximo, allowing KAFD to use data for