Middle East: SkyGrid and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology to Establish Advanced Air Mobility Framework in Saudi Arabia

Sky­Grid and the King Abdul­lah Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (KAUST) will work togeth­er on a frame­work which will explore, devel­op and advance Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty tech­nolo­gies across the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia.

Under the MoU, Sky­Grid and KAUST will estab­lish a strate­gic frame­work to explore AAM tech­nol­o­gy path­ways, strength­en reg­u­la­to­ry readi­ness, and accel­er­ate Sau­di Arabia’s inno­va­tion capac­i­ty in advanced avi­a­tion.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion brings togeth­er SkyGrid’s exper­tise in high-assur­ance dig­i­tal air­space inte­gra­tion and KAUST’s lead­er­ship in sci­en­tif­ic research, tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tion and nation­al-lev­el ecosys­tem devel­op­ment.

Togeth­er, both par­ties will col­lab­o­rate to accel­er­ate Sau­di Arabia’s readi­ness for crewed and uncrewed air­craft oper­a­tions, in align­ment with the Gen­er­al Author­i­ty of Civ­il Avi­a­tion (GACA) and inter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion stan­dards.

The news was announced at the Kennedy Cen­ter dur­ing the U.S.–Saudi Invest­ment Forum, as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s vis­it to Wash­ing­ton D.C.

Jia Xu, CEO of Sky­Grid, said: “Sau­di Ara­bia is mak­ing bold strides toward next-gen­er­a­tion, sus­tain­able avi­a­tion, and we are proud to sup­port that vision.

“Part­ner­ing with KAUST allows us to com­bine world-class research with oper­a­tional exper­tise to devel­op the dig­i­tal and oper­a­tional foun­da­tion need­ed for safe, scal­able Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty. Togeth­er, we can accel­er­ate the Kingdom’s progress toward autonomous flight, ATM automa­tion, nation­al AAM readi­ness, and a glob­al­ly lead­ing inno­va­tion ecosys­tem.”

The col­lab­o­ra­tion will also empha­size joint inno­va­tion, ecosys­tem devel­op­ment, and the trans­fer of research into real-world oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties that sup­port the Kingdom’s long-term vision for next-gen­er­a­tion trans­porta­tion and sus­tain­able avi­a­tion.

Key areas of col­lab­o­ra­tion include the joint devel­op­ment of an air-side AAM sand­box to test, val­i­date, and mature emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies; live and sim­u­lat­ed flight demon­stra­tions for VTOL, STOL, and UAS plat­forms inte­grat­ing SkyGrid’s dig­i­tal solu­tions with KAUST’s research capa­bil­i­ties; and the facil­i­ta­tion of third-par­ty flight exper­i­ments and com­mer­cial use cas­es to accel­er­ate ecosys­tem devel­op­ment in the King­dom.

The part­ner­ship also encom­pass­es advanced R&D in areas such as air­space effi­cien­cy, traf­fic decon­flic­tion algo­rithms, UTM automa­tion, dig­i­tal twins, resilient com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and sim­u­la­tion envi­ron­ments, as well as capac­i­ty-build­ing ini­tia­tives through tech­ni­cal train­ing, work­shops, oper­a­tor pro­grams, and cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment to strength­en Sau­di Arabia’s AAM tal­ent pipeline.

Sir Edward Byrne, Pres­i­dent of KAUST, said: “Part­ner­ing with Sky­Grid reflects KAUST’s mis­sion to trans­late world-class research into trans­for­ma­tive solu­tions for the King­dom.

“By lever­ag­ing KAUST’s strengths in data, auton­o­my, and sys­tems engi­neer­ing along­side SkyGrid’s advanced air­space and flight tech­nolo­gies, Sau­di Ara­bia is poised to emerge as a glob­al leader in Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty. This col­lab­o­ra­tion will catal­yse new indus­tries, enhance nation­al capa­bil­i­ties, and shape the future of move­ment and logis­tics.”

Estab­lished in 2009, KAUST is a grad­u­ate research uni­ver­si­ty devot­ed to find­ing solu­tions for some of the world’s most press­ing sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal chal­lenges in the areas of food and health, water, ener­gy, envi­ron­ment and the dig­i­tal domain.

The Uni­ver­si­ty brings togeth­er the best minds and ideas from around the world with the goal of advanc­ing sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy through dis­tinc­tive, col­lab­o­ra­tive research.