Saudi Arabia and Japanese telecom giant-turned-tech investor SoftBank have announced a new phase of their partnership on Tuesday, announcing the world’s biggest solar power generation project at a press conference in New York.
According to a report by CNBC, the project was projected to have a capacity of 200 gigawatts and will cost $200 billion through 2030.
The project is so large, it will support the creation of a domestic solar equipment manufacturing industry in the kingdom, said SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.
The announcement happened during the New York leg of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s trip across the United States.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Saudi-U.S. CEO Forum gathered American and Saudi business leaders in New York, where the kingdom announced about three dozen memorandums of understanding with US firms.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is the largest investor in Softbank’s $100 billion Vision Fund. The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund has reportedly committed $45 billion to the massive technology investment vehicle, which counts Uber, Nvidia and WeWork among its largest investments.
Softbank intends to invest as much as $25 billion in the kingdom in the next few years, Bloomberg reported in November. Much of that money will go towards a new tech-focused city called NEOM announced by Prince Mohammed during an investment summit last fall, according to Bloomberg.
