Why Saudi Arabia is Building a $1 Trillion City in the Desert

INTRO (0s)

• The narrator spends nights sleeping in the desert in the northwest corner of Saudi Arabia, where the only sounds are the wind and sand blowing over endless dunes (23s).
• A new sound can be heard not far from where the narrator sleeps, which is the construction of a futuristic city called Neom, a $1 trillion project being built by the Saudi Arabian kingdom (52s).
• Neom is being constructed using the kingdom's vast oil wealth, despite many believing it won't work and is just a mirage of royal ambition (1m2s).
• The construction of Neom is visible even from space, and the narrator wants to explore the city and understand its scale (1m20s).
• The narrator is joined by a friend, Soloom, who was born in a tent in the desert and knows it better than anyone, including its secrets and hidden water points (2m9s).
• Soloom will take the narrator on a tour of the desert to observe the construction of Neom up close and introduce him to his tribe members, who have survived for centuries as nomadic Bedouins (2m32s).
• The narrator wants to humanize the collision between the old and new worlds and believes that Neom represents the story of Saudi Arabia, where it came from, how it got there, and why it's trying to build cities in the sand (3m8s).

THE DESERT (3m22s)

• The area being visited has numerous trucks, including dump trucks, cargo trucks, and trucks carrying excavators, with many new roads that don't appear on Google Maps (3m40s).
• The roads are so new that they seem to have suddenly appeared, with many trucks driving on them (3m52s).
• The group's guide, Solom, deflates the tires of the vehicle to prepare for driving on sand dunes (4m8s).
• They enter the desert, where the vehicle can drive anywhere, and head towards a sand dune (4m17s).
• After driving through the desert, they find a small canyon to camp in, where they have a traditional dinner of camel meat, known as "Hash" (5m13s).
• The group drinks traditional Saudi coffee, which is made from unroasted green coffee beans and cardamom, and is very caffeinated (5m35s).
• Despite the caffeine, the locals drink coffee in the evening to relax, and also drink tea (5m50s).
• Solom mentions that he likes living in the desert and prefers the Bedouin lifestyle, but it's hard to find family members who still live in the desert (6m28s).
• The group is on their way to meet real Bedouin people who still live in the desert and sleep under the stars every night (7m1s).
• The Saudi desert is surprisingly quiet at night, despite the presence of trucks working in the area, and the silence is almost unsettling (7m20s).
• In the morning, Solom serves dates and green coffee, as well as more tea (7m56s).

NEOM (8m4s)

• Saudi Arabia is building a $1 trillion city in the desert called Neom, with an initial budget of $500 billion that has since increased to an estimated $1.5 trillion (8m18s).
• Neom will feature a futuristic industrial city called Oxagon, which will be built half on water and serve as a port connecting the world to high-tech manufacturing, research, and logistics (8m46s).
• Oxagon is part of a larger plan to create a hub for innovation and industry in the region (8m42s).
• Another part of the Neom project is Sindalah, a luxury resort island with ample yacht parking, which is reportedly 99% complete (9m11s).
• The Saudi government has forcibly relocated thousands of people to make way for the construction of 12 luxury coastal resorts and communities in the area (9m38s).
• The Neom project includes 3D visualizations of the planned developments, which are meant to give an idea of what the finished product will look like (9m58s).
• The visualizations are so realistic that they can be mistaken for actual footage, but they are still just renderings (10m6s).
• The Neom project is not just about building new cities, but also about transforming the surrounding landscape, including the creation of green circles in the desert (10m28s).
• The green circles are a separate project from Neom, and their purpose is not immediately clear (10m42s).
• A separate video has been made to explore the mystery of the green circles in the desert (10m48s).
• The video is available on a new channel called Tunnel Vision, and it delves into the story behind the green circles (10m50s).
• The Neom project is sponsored by Rocket Money, a company that offers a tool to help people manage their subscriptions and save money (11m9s).
• Rocket Money allows users to easily view and cancel their subscriptions, as well as negotiate lower bills and create a customized budget (11m35s).
• The company claims to have saved its clients up to $740 per year and has canceled subscriptions totaling over $500 million (12m14s).
• Rocket Money offers a free app that can be downloaded, and users can upgrade to a premium subscription to unlock additional features (12m31s).
• NEOM is a massive project in Saudi Arabia that includes a large underground digital community in the mountains of Mijah, a luxury tourist destination called Trojena with an artificial lake and outdoor activities such as mountain biking and skiing, and a future city called The Line (12m43s).
• Trojena will be a high-end resort for adventure and wellness, featuring an artificial lake, mountain biking, and skiing, despite the desert location, with the mountains being cold enough in winter to produce snow, but not enough for skiing, so artificial snow will be made (13m16s).
• The project is being built near a mountain where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments from God thousands of years ago (14m0s).
• The Line is a 170-kilometer-long city that will run on renewable energy and artificial intelligence, with the goal of having 10 million people live there, comparable to the population of New York City (15m13s).
• The construction of The Line involves massive excavation, with enormous amounts of soil being moved, comparable to building a mountain range, and a large number of trucks and machines working non-stop every day (15m38s).
• The project's scale is difficult to comprehend, with the amount of sand being moved and the creation of a straight line in the desert seeming impossible (16m4s).
• While many reports focus on the project's incredibility, cost, and perceived impossibility, the question of why the project is being built is more interesting (16m47s).

DESERT PEOPLE (16m54s)

• A group of people, including Solom, spent the night in a small cave and had a campfire, where they cooked a meal of goat meat with sheep's milk and flatbread (17m7s).
• After a few nights of sleeping on the desert floor, the group went sandboarding down a massive sand dune, which was smooth like butter (17m50s).
• Solom introduced his tribe members, who were surprised to see him in traditional Saudi attire, as he had become a modern city person (18m35s).
• The group visited a remote desert area where a few tents were set up, and the elder of the home warmly invited them in for coffee and tea (18m59s).
• The tribe members mentioned that the only Westerners they had met were oil prospectors, and it was unusual for someone to visit and learn about their culture, especially with a camera (19m24s).
• The family had been living in the area for a couple of months, and they would move again when the season changed, as they were a nomadic family that herded camels and goats (19m46s).
• The family's livelihood depended on the animals finding scarce food in the desert, and they had a deep connection with nature (20m39s).
• A common theme among the people living in the desert was the sense of peace and simplicity they felt, which they believed could never be found in cities (20m49s).
• The elder of the tribe mentioned that when he went to the city, he realized that the desert was a better life for him (21m11s).
• As the group prayed facing east, the narrator looked west, where the Saudi Arabian kingdom was building a massive line in the sand, constructing their high-tech eco-city (21m42s).

DESERT KINGDOM (22m21s)

• Historically, the Arabian Peninsula's way of life was centered around tribal communities, with many people living as Bedouins, until the discovery of oil changed everything (22m21s).
• The discovery of oil led to the rapid modernization of the kingdom, with the king viewing oil development as a key means of achieving national modernization and improving people's living standards (22m56s).
• Despite modernization, many people in Saudi Arabia still maintain a strong connection to their past, with hundreds of thousands of people continuing to live a nomadic lifestyle (23m20s).
• The Saudi government has been working to compensate those affected by development projects, but criticism of the government is not tolerated, even among nomadic communities (24m28s).
• The Bedouin community is known for its hospitality, with visitors often being treated to traditional foods such as camel meat and rice (24m55s).
• The Bedouin culture is one of the oldest surviving cultures on earth, with a rich history and traditions that are still practiced today (25m16s).
• The construction of a new city, Neom, is a significant development that is changing the face of the desert and the lives of the people who live there (26m0s).
• The city is intended to be a futuristic hub that will define the next chapter of human civilization, but its construction is also having a profound impact on the traditional way of life in the region (26m3s).

DESERT FUTURE (26m21s)

• The Bedouin people's way of life in the desert has been altered by oil, but the world is now accepting the reality that burning oil is making the Earth uninhabitable for humans (27m16s).
• The International Energy Agency predicts that global oil demand will peak in 2030 and then decline, which is bad news for Saudi Arabia, a country that relies heavily on oil (27m27s).
• Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, Aramco, reported a decline of over a third in its second-quarter profits compared to the previous year's record high (27m53s).
• To maintain its status, Saudi Arabia needs to use the money from oil to transform itself again, which is where Neom comes in (28m6s).
• Neom is a new economic and industrial hub that Saudi Arabia hopes will replace its oil economy, with new industries and inventions (28m19s).
• The historically closed kingdom is now open to tourists for the first time, with a new visa system in place (28m31s).
• Saudi Arabia plans to take its tourism industry to a whole new level, with Neom involving manufacturing, sustainable development, technology, sports, education, media, and even an attempt to reshape the city itself (28m52s).
• The country also wants to use its oil funds to maintain its leading position in global energy, with a focus on renewable energy sources like solar and wind power (29m43s).
• Saudi Arabia is building vast fields of wind turbines and plans to use them to manufacture new forms of hydrogen energy, which can be exported around the world (30m3s).
• The country needs investors and people to move to Neom to make it a success, with promotional videos showcasing the project's potential (30m15s).
• Some people have already moved to Neom for work, including a couple who relocated from abroad (30m30s).
• However, the project has also had a negative impact on some local communities, with people being forcibly relocated to make way for Neom's construction (31m49s).
• At least 47 villagers have been detained on terrorism-related charges, with five currently on death row, and one man was killed in a shootout with security forces after speaking out against the project on social media (32m31s).
• The scale and risk of the Neom project reflect the challenges facing Saudi Arabia, which needs to find a new way to sustain itself after oil runs out (32m48s).
• The country is betting on a few large projects, including Neom, to be its next big thing, but many may fail, and even if some succeed, it may not be enough to replace oil (33m0s).
• The goal is to propel the kingdom into the future, but it's clear that this won't happen overnight (33m15s).