GE announced $15 billion in new agreements with Saudi Arabia on Saturday, including $7 billion in GE technology and solutions. The projects will focus on the kingdom’s power, healthcare, energy and mining sectors, as well as skills training and digital analytics running on Predix, the company’s software platform for the Industrial Internet.
The technology will support the Saudi Vision 2030 government program, which aims to diversify the kingdom’s economy beyond oil and turn it into an industrial and knowledge hub.
The package includes a partnership with Saudi Aramco, the national oil and gas company, to generate $4 billion in efficiency savings by digitizing its operations. GE and its Saudi partners also will use software applications running on Predix to create “digital hospitals” in the kingdom and improve the efficiency of its minerals mining. GE and its Saudi partner Dussur will also expand their turbine repair and manufacturing joint venture.
Top: The GE technology will support the Saudi Vision 2030 government program, which aims to diversify the kingdom’s economy beyond oil and turn it into an industrial and knowledge hub. Above: GE machines generate more than half of Saudi electricity. Images credit: Getty Images.
“The steps we have taken to grow our business globally, to embed a culture of innovation and collaboration both within GE and with our customers, would simply not be possible without these types of partnerships,” said John Rice, GE vice chairman and CEO of the GE Global Growth Organization.
Saudi Arabia has used GE technology for more than 80 years. The company supplied equipment for the kingdom’s first oil refinery, and GE machines generate more than half of its electricity and millions of gallons of clean water each year.
In 2015, for example, GE announced a power contract with the Saudi Electric Company valued at nearly $1 billion to supply gas, steam and solar power generation technology to the Waad Al Shamal combined cycle power plant.
The company also recently opened an innovation center in the Dhahran Techno Valley, the company also has partnered with Tata Consultancy Services and Saudi Aramco to open the All-Women Business Process Services and IT Centre in Riyadh.