Saudi Arabia Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud is planning on developing a city with robot maids, flying taxis and glow-in-the-dark sand.
According to confidential planning documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the filthy rich state is also mooting having an artificial moon which will light up the sky every night and a Jurassic Park-style island where visitors will mingle freely with robot dinosaurs.
What’s more, there are plans to set up human gene editing clinics and 24/7 government surveillance.
Saudi Arabia also plans to forcibly jettison local communities to acquire the land in the country’s sleepy north west where the futuristic city known as Neom will be set up.
Since 2017, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who has widely been accused of being behind of the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been consulting developers who will be tasked with actualising his vision of the USD500 billion (Ksh52.18 trillion) city.
As it stands, Saudi Arabia is a desert and rainfall is rare but the prince plans to use “cloud seeding” to produce rainfall, cool the city and allow farmers to plant fresh produce in the city.
Future citizens not interested in visiting the farmer’s markets will instead be able to make reservations at a Michelin-star restaurant, which Neom aims to have more of per inhabitant than any other place in the world.
Wall Street Journal’s report also notes that the Crown Prince plans for world class schools, hologram teachers and the world’s best paying jobs to be all available in the city.
“Neom is all about things that are necessarily future-oriented and visionary,” Neom Chief Executive Nadhmi al Nasr told the WSJ. “So we are talking about technology that is cutting edge and beyond — and in some cases still in development and maybe theoretical.”
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While it is easy to be blown away by the unprecedented development, Neom is designed to be a total surveillance state where the government will spy on its citizens at will.
“This should be an automated city where we can watch everything,” Neom’s founding board is quoted as saying in the documents, according to the WSJ. “It is also a city where a computer can notify crimes without having to report them or where all citizens can be tracked.”
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All this poses serious erasure of citizen privacy as drones equipped with facial-recognition technology will be deployed across the city and the data gathered will be relayed to to Neom’s law enforcement officials.
The human gene editing clinics are tailored to ensure that Neom residents are physically stronger and smarter than the average human.
