The story of Saudi Arabia’s national transformation is vividly brought to life in Diriyah, the birthplace of the Saudi state and a symbol of national pride, now reimagined as a global landmark where heritage and innovation coexist in harmony. Within at-Turaif, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2010, history continues to resonate as modern developments rise alongside it, redefining what it means to be a historic city in the age of sustainability and digitization.
The Diriyah Giga-Project represents an unprecedented transformation that goes beyond restoring old buildings or reviving their heritage features. It represents building a smart city that embraces technology while preserving its historical soul, a model for sustainable, intelligent urbanism in Saudi Arabia that fuses historical authenticity with advanced technology. This transformation mirrors the aspirations of Saudi Vision 2030, which aims to build a vibrant society that empowers individuals to grow and realize their aspirations.
It also seeks to strengthen social infrastructure that preserves cultural heritage and national pride, while providing modern facilities for contemporary living. At the heart of this transformation stands Schneider Electric, delivering integrated digital solutions for efficient and sustainable city infrastructure management. Its efforts support the Kingdom’s goals of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, while maintaining the site’s unique cultural identity.
Schneider Electric has played a pivotal role in designing and implementing Diriyah’s smart infrastructure through the AVEVA Unified Operations Center (UOC), which provides an integrated management system for energy, water, lighting, security, traffic, and waste, all from a single unified dashboard and one screen. The platform monitor, collect, and analyzes real-time data to ensure operational efficiency, enhance residents’ and visitors’ quality of life, and enable faster emergency responses. It also monitors resource consumption and environmental indicators, resulting in a 10–20% reduction in energy use, up to a 25% reduction in water loss, a 20% decrease in air pollutants during the first year, and a 30% improvement in building efficiency compared to industry baselines.
AVEVA UOC represents Schneider Electric’s integrated solutions and ongoing commitment to supporting Saudi Arabia’s giga-projects and enhancing their sustainability. As Mohammed Shaheen, CEO of Schneider Electric Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Bahrain, explains: “Schneider Electric is proud to have been a strategic partner to the Kingdom for more than four decades, contributing to its urban and economic transformation.
Today, we are at the heart of Diriyah, one of the Kingdom’s most iconic projects, leading its digital transformation into a global model for a sustainable smart city. We have integrated efficiency, intelligence, and sustainability into a single platform through the AVEVA UOC and our innovative solutions, enabling optimized energy use, resource sustainability, improved quality of life, and operational resilience across all city systems. Diriyah proves that digital innovation is not a barrier to heritage preservation, but a catalyst that empowers the Kingdom to build a sustainable urban future in line with Vision 2030 and setting standards for smart cities globally.”
AVEVA platform also ensures effective integration between Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) systems by merging SCADA, BMS, and CCTV into one unified ecosystem. This integration reduces operational complexity by 40% and enables the city’s future smart infrastructure to scale and expand by up to 50% without the need for system redesign. Cybersecurity features enhance city protection and reduce risks by 30%, while cloud and hybrid solutions lower costs by 20–25%, improve local support readiness by 20%, and accelerate maintenance and operational response times.
In this context, Albert Naim, Head of Master Plan at Diriyah Company, emphasizes: “Today, Diriyah is more than a historic city brought back to life; it’s a global benchmark for sustainable smart cities, where heritage meets digital innovation. This transformation was driven by our strategic partnership with Schneider Electric, whose advanced digital solutions connected every system across the city through one integrated platform. This has made city management more efficient, elevated the experience for residents and visitors, and moved us closer to our sustainability goals, cutting energy use, reducing water loss, and supporting the Kingdom’s net-zero ambition by 2060. We’ve created a living, breathing city that puts Saudi Arabia on the global map of sustainable urban development. It’s proof that technology can turn vision into reality, without ever losing the authenticity and spirit of place.”
Currently, Diriyah stands as a living ecosystem of innovation; a city that speaks the language of artificial intelligence through an advanced digital platform operating quietly and precisely, like a heartbeat orchestrating urban life without overshadowing its historical soul. These technologies monitor energy and water systems, while buildings adapt dynamically to their surroundings, turning technology into a true enabler of heritage preservation through innovation.
This remarkable transformation would not have been possible without Schneider Electric’s advanced solutions, which unified all city systems into one integrated platform that enhances operational efficiency and improves the quality of life for residents and visitors alike. Diriyah now stands as a living model of a sustainable smart city due to Schneider Electric’s global expertise and deep understanding of Saudi Arabia’s local context, where cultural preservation and socio-economic progress converge, embodying the ambitions of Saudi Vision 2030 and uniting the authenticity of the past with the spirit of the future.
