Saudi Arabia's Royal Commission of Yanbu, in collaboration with Bayanat Company, a subsidiary of telecom major, Mobily, has announced the launch of the kingdom’s first smart city in Yanbu.

It was inaugurated by Prince Saud bin Abdullah bin Thunayyan, chairman of Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY) in the presence of Mohammed Al Suwaiyel, Minister of Communication and IT; Abdulaziz Salem Al Rwais, CITC governor; Alaa Nassif, CEO of the Royal Commission of Yanbu; Ahmed Aboudoma, chief executive of Mobily and other senior officials at a ceremony held in Riyadh.

The Royal Commission of Yanbu executed the telecom network infrastructure in collaboration with Bayanat Company. This included building and operating unified telecom and IT network in Yanbu Industrial City, which is considered the first brick in achieving the Yanbu Industrial Smart City.

The accomplishment is the first step of productive collaboration between the Royal Commission and Bayanat.

Royal Commission CEO Nassif said: "The Royal Commission’s vision for Yanbu Industrial City represents a qualitative transformation that complies with the kingdom’s Vision 2030 through enhancing the efficiency and capabilities of the information technology environment of the city to support initiatives and industrial and commercial projects in the Industrial City."

“Moreover, it aims to provide an attractive community environment to reside and secure high-income job and investment opportunities for residents and visitors,” he added.

The Royal Commission of Yanbu started strategic partnerships with international technology providers in the field of smart cities to develop and create more than 10 services in the city that will improve greatly the citizen experience and city operations by using new technologies like Internet of Things (IoT).

Ismail Alghamdi, the chief business officer at Mobily, said: "The inauguration confirms the leading role of Bayanat in the Saudi telecom sector and reflects the company’s keenness to support added value economic projects, and smart cities projects which serve the kingdom and are in line with 2030 Vision to develop the information technology infrastructure."

More than 1,800 km of FTTH cables have been implemented inside the city to connect around 15,000 housing units and 55 industrial units.

Additionally, 22,000 ports have been executed for the housing units and 480 ports for business units, he added.-TradeArabia News Service