Around Riyadh’s busy districts, streams of traffic weave past gleaming new office towers, where the quiet intensity of boardroom negotiations unfolds against a backdrop of a city racing to become the Gulf’s technology capital. Here, Saudi Arabia is accelerating one of its most ambitious technology plays yet, a multi-billion-dollar effort to transform the Kingdom into a global tech hub. A key component of this strategy is the National Technology Development Program (NTDP), launched in 2020 as part of the sweeping Vision 2030 blueprint, which is now quietly reshaping the geography of deep-tech innovation across the Middle East. Its latest and most strategic targets: Egypt’s most advanced startups.

Backed by a formidable $430 million in capital spread across six distinct initiatives, the NTDP is not merely cultivating local talent; it is strategically importing proven technological prowess. Central to this aggressive recruitment drive is the “Relocate Initiative,” a state-backed program offering a potent lure of up to $1.4 million per company in non-dilutive grants, comprehensive relocation support, and generous employment subsidies. The explicit goal is to anchor the region’s most promising ventures in Saudi Arabia, drawing them from established innovation centers like Cairo and Alexandria.

Among the first to leverage this opportunity is Si-Ware Systems, a Cairo-based pioneer in MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) and spectral sensing. With over fifteen years of experience, including co-developing chip technologies with Saudi industrial giants, Si-Ware announced today the opening of a dedicated office in the Kingdom, its expansion supported by a grant from the NTDP-affiliated Saudi National Semiconductor Hub.

“This expansion is not just about growing our footprint,” stated Dr. Hisham Haddara, the Founder and CEO of Si-Ware. “It’s a testament to our belief in the region’s potential to lead in deep-tech innovation.”

The new Riyadh office is slated to become a product development hub, concentrating on next-generation MEMS and inertial sensing devices. These technologies, which can determine the chemical composition of oil samples or analyze protein content in food, are fundamental to industries such as automotive and energy — sectors where Saudi Arabia is vying for global leadership. The move follows Si-Ware’s recent successful sale of its handheld near-infrared (NIR) platform, NeoSpectra, to the Swiss lab tech firm BÜCHI Labortechnik AG, a landmark exit for an Egyptian deep-tech company built on homegrown intellectual property.

Si-Ware’s journey highlights both the potential and the inherent difficulties for deep-tech ventures in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The region’s venture capital ecosystem has historically favored software and fintech, leaving hardware innovators to navigate a more arduous path. “In Egypt, we don’t have the luxury of relying solely on VC money,” Haddara explained, noting the company’s bootstrapped origins. Si-Ware has raised a modest $19 million in equity funding since its inception, supplemented by $20 million in contract revenue — a creative strategy born from necessity in a risk-averse investment landscape.

Another Egyptian startup finding fertile ground in the Kingdom is Qara, a supply chain technology firm that recently secured $2.6 million to fuel its Saudi expansion, also backed by the NTDP’s Relocate Initiative. Qara’s AI-powered platform provides real-time product authentication and traceability, critical tools in a region grappling with counterfeit goods and logistical inefficiencies. To date, the company has authenticated over 28 million products and built a network of more than 50,000 users across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya. Its flagship app, “Asly” (Original), allows consumers to verify product authenticity via QR codes, bolstering transparency for everything from electronics to pharmaceuticals.

The strategic alignment with Vision 2030’s goals of digitalizing and securing supply chains makes Qara a natural fit for the Saudi market. “After three years of a successful product-market fit in Egypt, Qara is now ready for international expansion,” said Hassan Abouzeed, Co-founder and CEO of Qara. “We are excited that our first step is into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where what we do aligns perfectly with the Saudi Vision 2030 objectives.”

The influx is not limited to software and sensing technology. In January, Simplex CNC, a Cairo-based manufacturer of Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines essential for industrial automation, announced a significant move. The company signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Saudi National Center for Industrial Development (NCID) to support the construction of a $13 million, 20,000-square-meter factory in Riyadh. This facility, Simplex’s first outside of Egypt, is expected to commence operations in 2026 and will manufacture CNC machines for the wider region.

“We see Saudi Arabia not just as a market, but as a regional hub for expansion,” remarked co-founder Mohammed Mansour. “The Kingdom’s industrial transformation creates significant tailwinds for deep-tech manufacturers like us.” This move signals a broader policy shift in the Kingdom, aiming to reduce reliance on imports and catalyze global competitiveness through localized, advanced manufacturing.

The NTDP’s aggressive courtship of foreign startups is underpinned by a comprehensive suite of financial instruments designed to de-risk and accelerate growth. Besides the Relocate initiative, five other programs form the core of the strategy:

• Venture Debt Initiative: Over $150 million allocated for non-dilutive capital to Series A startups.
• TechCrew: A $78 million fund to subsidize the salaries of local tech talent.
• Boost: $46 million to provide monthly stipends to founders for up to 12 months.
• Connect: A $42 million initiative to help SMEs cover the costs of qualifying for national tech projects.
• Bridge: A program offering up to $1.3 million for mature tech companies to expand globally.

As Egyptian deep-tech firms increasingly anchor their growth strategies in the Saudi market, a critical question is emerging in policy circles from Cairo to Riyadh: is this a brain drain or a strategic regional realignment?

For founders like Haddara, the move is one of expansion, not abandonment. Many of these firms maintain their core research and development efforts in Egypt, which boasts a growing science and technology ecosystem that recently broke into the top 100 global clusters in the 2024 Global Innovation Index.

However, the immense financial firepower and market access offered by Saudi Arabia provide a runway that is, for now, unmatched elsewhere in the region. In a landscape long defined by technology importation, the NTDP’s strategy represents a paradigm shift. By providing Egypt’s most capable innovators with the capital and support to scale, Saudi Arabia is not just building a tech hub — it is engineering a new future for the entire region’s technological landscape.