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Riyadh Air And Huawei Partnership To Shape Future Of Air Travel
Saudi Arabia’s new national carrier is leaning on the Chinese tech giant’s cloud and consumer reach to shape its digital strategy.
Riyadh Air has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Huawei as it lays down the digital foundations of its operations ahead of launch, putting technology at the center of the carrier’s expansion plans.
The agreement outlines a phased collaboration across cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, digital marketing, loyalty platforms and mobility services. While long-term in scope, the initial push has already been outlined: China, alongside a small set of priority international markets where Riyadh Air is seeking early scale.
The MoU formalizes work already taking shape between the two companies around smart aviation and digital systems. For Riyadh Air, the goal is to operate as a digital-first airline from day one, rather than layering technology onto legacy processes later. Huawei will support the carrier’s broader digital build-out, drawing on its experience in cloud, AI and consumer-facing ecosystems.
China sits at the core of the strategy: Around 20% of smartphone users in the country use Huawei devices, giving Riyadh Air access to a tightly controlled digital environment shaped by local platforms and habits. The airline plans to tailor market-specific journeys covering ticket selection, booking and in-trip engagement.
“[The] China market is an important part of Riyadh Air’s global expansion and essential to Saudi Arabia’s tourism growth,” said Vincent Coste, chief commercial officer of Riyadh Air. “As the Kingdom raises its target to 150 million tourists by 2030 our partnership with Huawei strengthens our ability to deliver the digital, seamless and personalized journey Chinese guests travelers expect”.
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Coste said the airline aims to act as a bridge between Saudi Arabia and China, and Huawei’s consumer footprint — more than 730 million monthly active users worldwide — is expected to help introduce travelers to the new carrier’s digital lifestyle ecosystem, Sfeer.
Riyadh Air plans to serve more than 100 destinations by 2030. As competition among Gulf carriers tightens, the airline is betting that a tightly integrated digital technology stack, built early and tuned to outbound markets like China, can set it apart.
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At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value
Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.
Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.
The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.
Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.
The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.
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Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.
What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.
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