The governments of Saudi Arabia and China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region launched the inaugural LEAP East technology event on July 8, signalling a shared ambition to lead the world in the intelligence age as their ties deepen.

The three-day event in Hong Kong brought together some 25,000 participants from over 30 countries.

Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi Arabia’s minister of communications and information technology, noted that Hong Kong is “the largest financial center in Asia” while Saudi Arabia is “the largest economy in the Middle East”. The two sides want to establish a partnership “to drive collective action on closing down the global divides” in artificial technology, he added.

In his presentation, Alswaha highlighted Asia’s growing influence in the global technology economy with $34 trillion in its economic activity, a third of the global economy and the largest by far for having $10 trillion of the digital and AI economy.

“You even have more reasons to hold your head high and be very proud because if you look at AI patents, 82 percent comes from the East. If you look at semiconductor tape off and fabrication, mostly they come from the Middle East,” he said.

IN PICTURES: LEAP summit debuts in HK

Alswaha also noted that most data is concentrated in English, despite Mandarin being the world’s most spoken language.

“This is why, under the leadership of His Royal Highness (Mohammed Bin Salman) and in partnership with you, like-minded friends and partners, we're here to do three things. We're here to energize, enable and empower the world under the intelligence age, underpinned by our value proposition of compute, customers and capital,” said Alswaha.

“We're here to talk about how to leapfrog together, how we could join hands to make sure that we lead the world in the intelligence age, and to lead into the intelligence age. (As) Jensen Huang keeps calling it, we have the five layers of the AI cake and the foundation is energy,” he added, referring to the NVIDIA founder and CEO.

Alswaha said that if one is talking about the compute divide, “it's really an energy divide challenge” and that one needs to master the world of hardware, software, services and applications.

“Hence, the kingdom stands tall in partnership with you with our value proposition of compute, capital, and customers because the world needs us to work collectively to close down the global AI divides,” the visiting Saudi minister said.

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, in his welcome remarks, shared why the city is an ideal base for innovation and how Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East region could “seize the opportunities before us together”.

Chan noted that Hong Kong “is perhaps the only city in the world that connects seamlessly to both the Chinese mainland and the rest of the world at the same time”.

He said the Hong Kong government supports innovation, which is anchored in three strategies, namely on finance plus and a vibrant capital market where “innovation meets capital and Hong Kong is where capital and ideas meet”.

“This is the heart of our finance plus strategy. Using finance as a powerful enabler to drive the economy. Our capital markets are growing, not only in scale but also in breadth and depth,” said Chan. He noted that the city topped the world in IPOs in 2025 with 119 listings, raising some $35 billion, including for many world tech champions.

This year, he said, the momentum is even more promising.

“We are a destination of choice for emerging Chinese and international technology companies to raise funds for global expansion. This is a genuine win-win,” said Chan.

“Companies can tap our active markets to fill R&D and scale up at home and abroad while investors gain direct access to the enormous upside of China's innovation-led growth. This is aided by our various connect schemes where international investors can access high-quality mainland enterprises while mainland investors can invest in companies listed in Hong Kong,” he added.

READ MORE: Chan: HK an export gateway for mainland tech enterprises

Chan said Hong Kong’s venture capital and private equity ecosystem is managing over $230 billion, second only to the Chinese mainland in Asia.

And for frontier technologies that call for patent capital, he said, the HK investment corporation has already invested in more than 200 projects with an initial capital injection of around $8 billion. Further injection is planned later this year as the government continues to back companies looking to grow from Hong Kong into the international arena.

“Fintech in particular is an important part of this strategy. In Hong Kong, we embrace digital assets because we see potential to make transactions more efficient, more inclusive and at lower costs,” said Chan.

“At the same time, we balance pro-innovation policies with regulation, keeping them within proper guardrails so that the sector can prosper with credibility while investors and public are being protected,” he added.

Chan added that parallel to Hong Kong’s finance plus strategy is its focus on artificial intelligence which is a major engine of innovation.

“Hong Kong has everything it takes to build AI into a powerful industry, computing power, algorithm, data, application scenarios, talent and capital. Across every sector from finance and industry to healthcare and education, AI is already being put to work,” said Chan.

Chan said Hong Kong spared no effort in nurturing talent and raising digital literacy through its training for all initiative “because we believe our community must know how to work with AI, using it to create value while staying alert to its potential risks”.

“Our first strategy is to bring technology, education, talent and industry closely together, fostering a virtuous cycle in which one reinforces another,” he added.

Contact the writer at jan@chinadailyapac.com