NEOM

Saudi giga-project in Tabuk Province announced in 2017 and controlled by the Public Investment Fund. Its components include the Oxagon industrial city and port, The Line, the Trojena mountain resort and Red Sea islands.

Industry: Regional development and giga-project | Location: Saudi Arabia | Founded: 2017

About NEOM

NEOM is a megaproject and planned region in Tabuk Province in north-western Saudi Arabia, covering a planned area of about 26,500 square kilometres. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced it on 24 October 2017 at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, and is described as its founder and chairman. The project was conceived as a set of developments rather than a single city. Its best-known component, The Line, was designed as a linear urban development. Oxagon is a port and industrial city on the Red Sea, and Trojena is a mountain resort that had been chosen to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games. Sindalah is another island development within the NEOM area. From 2024 the scale of the plans has been reduced. Reuters reported, citing sources, that Saudi Arabia was prioritising sports-related infrastructure as costs rose, after the sudden departure of NEOM's chief executive. Bloomberg reporting carried by several outlets said that by 2030 only about 2.4 kilometres of The Line's planned 170 kilometres would be completed, with a population target below 300,000 against an original 1.5 million. In January 2026 Euronews reported a further reduction of the plans for The Line. Semafor reported on 22 May 2026 that NEOM had delayed further work on The Line until at least after 2030 and that Trojena would receive no new investment until after 2030, while Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund shifted spending towards infrastructure such as ports and data centres. According to Semafor, about USD 3 billion was still being spent on Oxagon and the 2030 population target had been cut to as many as 100,000 people. The Asian Winter Games planned for Trojena in 2029 have been postponed indefinitely, and trade reports said a contract with Italian contractor Webuild for three dams and an artificial lake at Trojena, reportedly worth USD 4.7 billion, was terminated in April 2026. Reports of a possible restructuring that would move individual assets to other state-backed bodies had not been confirmed as approved.

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