NEOM is known for its ambitious projects, but has THE LINE proven to be too ambitious to reach completion? With a number of reports on the progress (or lack thereof), Saudi Arabia’s walled city has come under scrutiny yet again for having unrealistic targets… When Saudi Arabia unveiled THE LINE in 2021, the megacity was positioned as the crown jewel of NEOM – the $500 billion, futurist region at the heart of Vision 2030.

A statement on Saturday from the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee (SOPC) and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) said the event will be held at a "later date to be announced in due course". No official reason has been given for the postponement but Singapore publication The Straits Times, external has reported that there has been a delay in the construction of a ski resort.

With the countdown on to the FIFA World Cup 2034 in Saudi Arabia, it is perhaps little surprise that football is viewed as a central pillar of NEOM’s plans to help nurture a physically active society in the Kingdom – for women as well as men.  Few would have anticipated the transformational progress of women’s football in Saudi Arabia over recent years, and the influence it is having on the growth of women’s sport, which has long been at the forefront of NEOM’s strategic objectives.

Some people seem to think so.

When Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman proposed building a 110-mile horizontal urban “skyscraper” called the Line near the border of Jordan and Egypt in 2020—the centerpiece of a vast new planned city called NEOM—many of the world’s most prestigious firms clamored to sign up. These ranged from the usual suspects of neoliberal future-making, like Thom Mayne’s aesthetically erratic outfit Morphosis, to firms that inherited the city-building impulses of modernism, such as Peter Cook and an I.M. Pei–less Pei Cobb Freed.

After more than 100 years of absence, lions may once again roam parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia has announced plans to reintroduce lions as part of its broader environmental restoration and biodiversity conservation strategy, marking one of the most ambitious wildlife rewilding initiatives ever attempted in the Middle East. If successful, the effort would restore a lost apex predator and reshape ecosystems that have been without lions for generations.

The company has announced that five Saudi game studios have been selected to receive funding under its flagship Level Up gaming accelerator, marking the programme’s largest cycle to date. Following an initial mentorship phase supporting a further 18 studios, the latest cohort represents the most expansive Level Up cycle yet, according to NEOM.