PIF's decision in August to drop The Line and Trojena from its 2026–30 strategy has freed construction crews just as Expo 2030 Riyadh moves into construction. Every Expo tender has drawn at least seven or eight qualified bidders, and four or five signature-building contracts are due before year-end. The Saudi pavilion's substructure is almost 50% complete, a utility corridor of more than 7km is being built, the workforce will peak at 40,000 to 50,000, and Expo opens on 1 October 2030.
Four or five key contracts due before year-end will establish the price benchmark for the site. The subcontractor's commercial team should secure framework terms with the likely winners as soon as possible.
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Fifty megawatts becomes 250
Al Moammar Information Systems received a letter of award expanding its AI data centre project with HUMAIN from 50 megawatts to 250 megawatts, adding 200 megawatts in phases. The expanded contract value exceeds 689% of the company's total 2025 revenue, which was SAR 1.27 billion; the original award announced in March represented more than 155% of 2024 revenue. Work on the first 50 MW continues while engineering, procurement and construction begin on the additional capacity, with contract procedures to be finalised within two weeks.
The company increased its capacity from 50 to 250 megawatts and reported SAR 1.27 billion in revenue last year. This rapid growth in scale exceeded the pace of business development.
The headline is oil. The story is 0.6%.
GASTAT's flash estimate puts Q2 real GDP down 4.8% year on year, oil activities −24.7%, non-oil +0.6%, government +0.9%. Seasonally adjusted, the economy shrank 4.9% on the quarter. For context, the Q1 2026 flash showed GDP +3.0% with non-oil +2.8%. so on a like-for-like flash basis, non-oil growth has fallen from 2.8% to 0.6% in one quarter.
A −4.8% print looks bad and mostly isn't; a +0.6% print looks fine and mostly isn't. That inversion is the whole difficulty of reading this economy right now, the alarming number is the reassuring one, and the reassuring number is the one to worry about.
Five firms manage 60%
Assets managed by Saudi capital market institutions reached about SAR 1.36 trillion at the end of Q2 2026, up 6%, or SAR 74.5 billion, on the quarter, according to a CMA report; SNB Capital led with SAR 303.6 billion (22%), followed by Al Rajhi Capital at SAR 181.5 billion (13%) and Alinma Capital at SAR 128.6 billion (9%), and the top five firms held 60% of the total.
Five firms control 60% of a SAR 1.36 trillion market, and most of the growth is happening through bank-owned channels. If you run a boutique asset manager, focus on a niche that the top five overlook instead of trying to match their scale.
