Saudi Arabia To Scale Back Neom Megaproject (ft.com)
- Reference: 0180659528
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/26/1528240/saudi-arabia-to-scale-back-neom-megaproject
- Source link: https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/ce5287a2-00b6-4ca1-906a-c929fffdba0a
Architects are already working on a more modest design that would repurpose infrastructure built over the past few years. Neom could pivot toward becoming a data center hub, taking advantage of seawater cooling from its coastal location as Saudi Arabia pushes to become a leading AI player. The Trojena ski resort is also being downsized and will no longer host the 2029 Asian Winter Games as originally planned. Construction largely stalled after longtime CEO Nadhmi al-Nasr abruptly departed in November 2024.
[1] https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/ce5287a2-00b6-4ca1-906a-c929fffdba0a
[2] https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/10/26/1737200/saudi-arabia-pushes-ahead-with-its-sci-fi-city-vision
What (Score:2)
This is somehow news? This has been "scaled back" half an hour after the original presentation, what are you talking about?
It did what it was meant to do - plaster saudi allover internet - did it well, now it's time to finish all the beach resorts and get some cash flowing in.
Re: (Score:1)
They added "AI datacenter" to those revised plans, that is the "new" part.
Scaled back to what, exactly? (Score:2)
It seems like the Neom project has been scaled back a few times at this point.
I'm wondering what's left at this point? A modest sized building and a port?
It takes a big thinker to think big (Score:2)
Really big the biggest ever, longer than anything, taller faster, stronger, Dumber.
Belgium-sized (Score:2, Funny)
> Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's flagship development that sprawls across a Belgium-sized stretch of Red Sea coastline and was once billed as the world's largest construction site.
That is about 4.3 million football fields.
From Belgium size... (Score:2)
...to Luxembourg size.
Re: (Score:2)
It was the size of Luxembourg after the last downsizing. It's now the size of Andorra, but there's another set of cuts coming and it will end up a little smaller than Monaco.
Bummer! (Score:2)
Reality strikes again! It always does in the end.
Claustrophobia (Score:2)
The Line was the worst idea ever. 200 meters is way too thin, it needed to be at least 400 meters wide. 200 meters is the distance you walk in about 2 minutes. A mediocre golfer can whack the ball farther than that. Speaking of sports you can't fit a stadium in there.
Re: (Score:2)
It stuck me as someone watched Snowpiercer and saw the class-divide among the length of the train and thought, "that's a good idea, we should build a city like that!"
And in some ways for social control it makes sense, basically if no one is allowed outside without express permission and oversight and subject to summary execution if caught out there, then any attempt at revolution from the unwashed masses at the bottom of society would be very difficult to bring to bear. The city itself makes it difficult t
Belgium (Score:2)
If only people would know how big (or small) Belgium is.
Re: (Score:2)
Surly everyone knows that Belgium is just a little bigger than Lesotho but just a little smaller than Moldova, but for the geographically challenged, that's a somewhat bigger than Hawaii but smaller than Maryland.
Line was always silly for geometry and economics (Score:2)
The Line was always a deeply silly idea. Cities work due to density and having easy access to many things, while getting a lot of use of the same infrastructure. A city's efficiency and degree of flexible access scales at a better than linear rate with population because of the geometry. If I'm in a given location then if I can access any location within radius R of me, that means the number of locations available goes up as roughly R^2. If one has a giant line, it only goes up like R. The entire idea of Th
Re: (Score:2)
> The Line was always a deeply silly idea. Cities work due to density and having easy access to many things, while getting a lot of use of the same infrastructure. A city's efficiency and degree of flexible access scales at a better than linear rate with population because of the geometry. If I'm in a given location then if I can access any location within radius R of me, that means the number of locations available goes up as roughly R^2. If one has a giant line, it only goes up like R. The entire idea of The Line read like the sort of thing that a 10 year old had and thought was really cool, and then somehow got to do it. Which given how absolutely spoiled the Saudi princes are, it wouldn't surprise me if it was the case that Mohammed bin Salman had this idea when he was a kid, and no one since then has pushed back on it because they are afraid of being Khashoggied.
Except "R" really depends on your ability to travel. Which means what really matters is your proximity to transit and major roads.
I think the Line is probably a bad idea, but I don't think that's the reason why. I think the bigger issue is that cities are ultimately organic creations, shops, industry, and residences show up where they're needed. I'm not sure a planned city will be economically successful.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a valid point. A lot of attempts at highly planned cities have gone badly. Brasilia is still having trouble being a planned city and to some extent succeeded when they started not paying as close attention to parts of the plan. But yes, you do need to make sure you have major roads, or available busses and trains. But even if you make R really high (as the Line intended), the linear v. quadratic payoff is still going to be a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
> Except "R" really depends on your ability to travel. Which means what really matters is your proximity to transit and major roads.
That is only half of the ability to travel. The second one is the capacity and speed of transit and roads. That does not work for a line-shape either.
The bottom line is that a "line" shape does not work for a connected society. The only way a line shape works if you have it as a major transport way with small settlements alongside that serve the transit, i.e. the transport way is the main focus. And that requires slow transport that needs to stop and refuel, rest, eat, etc. frequently along the way. For a t
Re: (Score:2)
> If I'm in a given location then if I can access any location within radius R of me, that means the number of locations available goes up as roughly R^2.
Assuming a mathematically idealized city. Meanwhile, in the real world, connectivity trumps distance. The original The Line concept had this linear transport system that might have worked, for two reasons: One, a dedicated high-speed transport is very efficient - compare subways to busses. Two, if everything is along the same axis, there are no missed connections or need to switch to a different line three times. If executed right, the amount of stuff you can access in a given time (instead of distance) cou
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Cities work because of positive distance effects and positive infrastructure effects from small distances. Up to a certain size, but still. This requires something very roughly circle-shapes. A "line" is the very antithesis of all the advantages a city has and can only work using an extreme amount of money and goods pumped in from the outside. And even then it works very badly.
All quite obvious. But when the "architects" of such a "vision" have tons of money and power but no sense, projects like this g
Joey from Friends said it best (Score:2)
> The Line, a futuristic 170-kilometer linear city that served as Neom's centerpiece, will be radically reimagined as a result, the report added.
"The line is a dot to you"
They noticed something? (Score:2)
Naaa, probably not. These people are primitive in their minds and (still) drunk on power and money. My guess is things just failed to materialize (some of the architecture was not even possible) and the money pumped in did not make a difference. Well, as soon as the world can do without their oil, they are done. They had a pretty nice chance to make something of themselves. Instead they opted for Theocracy and appearances over substance. A complete and impressive fail.
Abruptly left? (Score:2)
In a suitcase?
Scaling back again? (Score:2)
Feel like over the past 3 years we've had multiple stories about this project scaling back, 3 or 4 more times and this will just be a regular office building.
In other news my personal Dyson sphere has been scaled back yet again! How could anyone have seen that such a thing is an unfeasible fantasy.
Re: Scaling back again? (Score:2)
Is it usb-pd or did you go down to 5v yet?
Re: (Score:2)
> In other news my personal Dyson sphere has been scaled back yet again!
Oh, no! It's a [1]Dyson [wikipedia.org] [2]Sphero [wikipedia.org] now, isn't it?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_(company)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphero