Saudi Vision 2030 Exhibition at LEAP 2026 Highlights Transformation Journey

Austria wants its longstanding relationship with Saudi Arabia to produce more than diplomatic cooperation. At LEAP 2026 in Riyadh, Austrian State Secretary for Digital Affairs, Constitution and Public Service Alexander Pröll said Vienna was seeking to turn the political relationship into practical business and research partnerships.

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to help translate the political relationship into concrete business and research partnerships

“Meeting directly with Saudi ministers gives us the chance to talk frankly about where our two digital agendas overlap and where we can genuinely work together,” Pröll told Asharq Al-Awsat. He said he hoped the relationships formed during the conference would become real projects in the coming months.

Pröll described Saudi Arabia and Austria as having a friendly, longstanding relationship, with fresh momentum in digital technology. Both countries are pursuing government-led transformation programs, he said. Saudi Arabia is advancing Vision 2030, while Austria is promoting digital sovereignty through its Public AI Initiative, the federal administration chatbot ida, GovGPT and the ID Austria digital identity system.

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Meeting directly with Saudi ministers gives us the chance to talk frankly about where our two digital agendas overlap and where we can genuinely work together

That shared focus gives the two countries common ground beyond technology itself, according to Pröll. He said both governments view digitalization as a matter of national capability, resilience and sovereignty. The Austrian delegation includes the country’s national research institution, federal infrastructure and telecom regulatory bodies, as well as companies working in cloud infrastructure and engineering technology.

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Saudi Arabia and Austria have a long-standing and friendly relationship, and I see real momentum building specifically in the digital and technology space

Pröll presented LEAP as a rare forum where governments, researchers and companies from around the world can hold detailed discussions within a few days. Austria’s goals include presenting its approach to digital sovereignty and responsible artificial intelligence, while learning from Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation at a pace and scale he said few countries can match.

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That gives us a genuinely shared language: both countries understand digitalization not just as a technology question, but as a question of capability, resilience and sovereignty