News

Saudi Arabia Will Be Home To A $5BN Floating City

The superyacht, to be named Pangeos, will have room for 60,000 guests along with shopping malls and beach clubs.

Published

4 years ago

November 20, 2022

Nour Nasir

saudi arabia will be home to a $5bn floating city

Lazzarini

An Italian design studio called Lazzarini has begun a massive project to design and eventually build a $5 billion “terayacht”. The colossal floating city will be based in Saudi Arabia, and will have the ability to host 60,000 people.

As if the sheer size of this craft wasn’t headline-grabbing enough, the yacht, named Pangeos, will be shaped like a giant sea turtle.

According to Lazzarini, Pangeos is named “after the supercontinent that existed millions of years ago during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras.”

The design studio went on to add: “Translating this into a somewhat futuristic expression, Pangeos extends its length for 550 meters (1,800 ft) and measures 610 meters (2,000 ft) at its widest point — the wings. If realized, the turtle-shaped vessel will become the world’s largest structure ever built.”

pangeos terayacht floating city

The floating city will be home to 19 luxury villas and 64 apartments on each of the turtle’s wings. Lazzarini expects to pump $8 billion into construction, creating the largest-ever floating object after an eight-year build period.

pangeos floating city villas

The design of Pangeos is based around a main square that resembles a giant sports stadium, which extends into a wide terraced villa area with private houses, shops, and other buildings, plus a rooftop terrace with an upper “shell” zone for landing flying vehicles.

Also Read: Saudi Arabia Reveals Plans To Build The City Of The Future

In the lower spaces, 30,000 cells provide an unsinkable floating platform, with the bulk of the vessel being constructed from steel.

As well as being notable for its outrageous size and head-turning design, Pangeos will offer unrivaled luxury for guests, with a rooftop garden, mall, beach club, and a massive central shipyard with direct access to the sea.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.