Saudi Arabia is emerging as a fast-growing market for physical AI, with 13% of the Saudi technology startups included in a global study developing solutions that combine artificial intelligence with robotics and smart machines.
The study covered 4,420 startups across 20 countries, including 663 developing physical AI technologies. France and Singapore led the selected markets at 17%, followed by Canada and Australia at 14%.
Physical AI refers to systems that interpret their surroundings, make decisions and perform tasks through robots or connected machinery. Potential applications include factory robots, warehouse management systems, autonomous vehicles, drones and equipment used for inspection and monitoring.
Globally, manufacturing and automotive were the leading sectors for commercial deployment, accounting for 51% of applications, followed by logistics, warehousing and retail at 47%. The findings point to potential opportunities in Saudi Arabia’s industrial projects, logistics hubs and smart warehouses.
Commercial adoption remains a challenge. Only 26% of developers said their local markets were ready to deploy physical AI, while 70% identified slow customer adoption as a major barrier. The company said cloud computing was essential to development for 72% of developers, while 56% cited limited computing capacity as a constraint.
Ahmed Bushnaq, general manager of Amazon Web Services in Saudi Arabia, said the country’s results reflect growing startup activity around solutions that connect software with practical hardware applications.
Source: Arabian Business
