The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) was established by a royal order on 30 August 2019 as the Kingdom’s national authority for data and AI, reporting directly to the prime minister. The same decree created two affiliated bodies: the National Data Management Office (NDMO) and the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence (NCAI).
SDAIA’s mandate is to deliver the national strategy for data and artificial intelligence, operate national data infrastructure, coordinate data governance across government, and accelerate AI adoption in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 economic diversification programme. Its creation centralised what had been scattered across ministries into a single high-level authority, mirroring the model the UAE used with its AI ministry and G42.
Why a business reader should care: SDAIA is a template for how a state can stand up AI governance and capability from the top down, and it illustrates the wider Gulf strategy of treating data and AI as sovereign national assets rather than leaving them to the private market.