Forum hails prospects of MENA tech partnerships

Companies doing business in the Middle East are urged to look into more opportunities in digital infrastructure, innovation partnerships and cross-border collaboration as these are now shaping the “modern” Silk Road and are emerging as the new Asia-Middle East and North Africa economic corridor, a technology forum heard on July 8.
Kiki Zhang, chief financial officer at global robotics and technology firm FJDynamics, noted that when people talk about the Silk Road nowadays, it is no longer just about traditional elements like ports, roads, railways and physical trade.
“The new Silk Road consists of AI (artificial intelligence), data, robotics, automation and industrial application,” said Zhang, who was among the three speakers at a panel discussion titled “Digital and Innovative Silk Road — the New Asia-MENA Economic Corridor” at the inaugural global Saudi technology event LEAP East, held in Hong Kong from July 8 to 10.
“FJDynamics is a company focusing on the automation of robotic solutions. We have devoted ourselves for many years to some industrial application scenarios, including agriculture, construction, landscaping, and probably even the airport. And those sectors are not fancy per se,” Zhang said.
“However I think those sectors are really where the labor shortage, the sustainability needs … and even the safety requirements are becoming very, very real.”
From her company’s perspective, Zhang said that they do not treat the Middle East as “a simple sales destination”, as the region is becoming an important place in terms of innovation.
The FJDynamics executive noted that the region has invested heavily in smart city infrastructure, food security and even urban planning for the future.
“So for us, the Middle East means the demands are real,” Zhang said.
China, on the other hand, she said, is good at turning technology into products and turning products into scalable development, especially for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which she said has been very good at fast engineering and fast iteration.
“We have very strong supply chain support and we even have a very practical thinking methodology,” Zhang said.
She said Chinese companies are very relevant to the Middle East, a region looking for robust, cost-efficient and scalable solutions that can be applied to real working scenarios.
“Hong Kong’s role is even more interesting. Hong Kong always thinks of itself as a super-connector, but for us, Hong Kong plays a role like a validator.”
She shared that FJDynamics, which is headquartered in Hong Kong, deploys a lot of construction solutions from the sector in Hong Kong to the Middle East and other regions.
Hong Kong’s construction industry is one of the most advanced, she noted, crediting the Hong Kong government’s spending and encouragement to bring advanced technology to every working site in the city.
“So, once your solutions get validated in Hong Kong, it gives a lot of confidence to your Middle East counterparts … we bring (a) very advanced 3D scanner to every construction site to build 3D model. And we bring the autonomous solutions to every single excavator in Hong Kong (making them fully autonomous),” Zhang said.
Another speaker, Martin Zhu, co-founder and CEO at i2Cool, said they expanded their technology not only in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, but also to the Middle East “because they are a good market for us”.
Zhu’s business journey began after years of research, which later saw him attending a 2017 conference in Egypt, which he said “is also a Silk Road” country. There, they found out about the Saharan silver ant, which survives the extreme desert heat by using its unique hair structure to reflect the sun and release heat.
Not long after, inspired by the Saharan silver ant, they founded i2Cool to commercialize their cooling technology.
Last year, the United Arab Emirates accounted for around 30 percent of i2Cool’s revenue, said Zhu, adding that their technology helped reduce the cooling load of hotels and shopping malls, including the Dubai Mall and those in Abu Dhabi.
“So, I think the Silk Road countries … we can work together using the outcome and technology from (Hong Kong). Then we can use our technology to improve the infrastructure and environment in the Middle East so they can have high sufficiency to support their green transition,” Zhu said.

Yufeng Wan, partner and head of technology investment at Templewater, a private equity firm headquartered in Hong Kong, noted that since 2023, he has been visiting the Middle East region every four to six weeks.
“And fast-forward to today, we have capital that comes from the region. So we have LPs (limited partners) from sovereign funds, from corporates, from large family offices. But we also have a dedicated strategy in the region. We have offices in Muscat, Oman,” he said.
“When we talk about collaboration, whether it is between Hong Kong and the Middle East, or private organization or local network, quite often, what we need to think about is what the other side wants, not only what we want to achieve but what the other side wants to achieve.”
Wan said that in the Gulf nations, the company notices a strong emphasis on economic diversification.
“There’s a very clear intention from every government in the region to create a more diversified source of revenue for their nation,” he said. While the rest of the world is looking at energy diversification and reducing reliance on fossil fuels, “we see the GCC also wants to create diversity”, he said, adding that countries such as the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia “have quite a strong interest in opening up to new economies”.
“We see a general interest from the region to welcome Chinese technologies, especially when it comes to hardware, when it comes to manufacturing,” Wan said.

Growing interest
Like Zhang of FJDynamics, Wan sees a clear desire from the local environment to introduce a range of industries from advanced manufacturing firms to food security, sustainable economy.
He also noted an emerging, overlapping region that is of common interest — namely Central Asia.
Wan said he sees a strong interest in Central Asia from the Middle East and from China, including the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
He said there are a lot of large projects when the asset owner is from the GCC region.
“The EPC (engineering, procurement and construction), the equipment and manufacturing are from China. The uptake is from the local, large corporates.”
One of the big events that reaffirmed the deepening ties between Asia and the MENA region took place on July 9 at LEAP East when Saudi innovative solutions services firm Elm and Huawei announced a partnership to strengthen cooperation across artificial intelligence, smart city applications, IT infrastructure and technology-driven operational support.
Majid bin Saad Al Oraifi, vice-president of strategic relations at Elm, said the partnership reflects Elm’s commitment to deepening strategic collaborations across Asia and accelerating its international growth.
“Launching it at LEAP East reinforces our long-term ambition to bring Saudi digital innovation to new markets and build lasting value with partners who share our vision for the future.”

The announcement headlined a significant Saudi presence at LEAP East, which saw many Saudi entities and startups participating. Among them were Invest Saudi, Aramco Digital, Made in Saudi, ZNotes, Nuxera Health Tech, NanoPalm, SARsatX, UVera Inc and Protein Capital, alongside investment organizations including Humain, PIF and 500 Global.
Their presence comes as economic ties between Saudi Arabia and Asia continue to deepen. Trade between Saudi Arabia and China increased from $42 billion in 2016 to $108.2 billion in 2025, with China remaining the kingdom’s largest trading partner.
Zubair Junjunia, founder and CEO of ZNotes, a global education platform, said Asia has been a key market for ZNotes for years, and LEAP East “has given us the platform and visibility to create real, meaningful partnerships”.
The growing relationship is also creating new opportunities for capital to move between the two regions. 500 Global, a global early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator with more than $2.3 billion in assets under management, noted a fundamental shift in capital flows between Saudi Arabia and Asia from transactional relationships to long-term innovation partnerships.
“Investors on both sides are looking beyond market size; they’re looking for founders with global ambition, scalable AI-enabled solutions, and the ability to execute across borders,” said Amal Dokhan, managing partner at 500 Global. 
Dokhan said 500 Global had spent years building one of the region’s most active early-stage investment platforms across MENA, working closely with founders from inception through scale.
“The Asia-Middle East corridor is becoming one of the most exciting pathways for the next generation of globally relevant startups,” he said.
Annabelle Mander, executive vice-president at events management enterprise Tahaluf and co-creator of LEAP, noted that the number of Saudi companies and startups coming to Hong Kong demonstrates how quickly the commercial relationship between Saudi Arabia and Asia is developing.
“Saudi technology companies are looking outward for customers, capital and partners, while Asian companies increasingly see the kingdom as a market for growth. LEAP East creates a place where those relationships can turn into real business,” Mander said.

jan@chinadailyapac.com