His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince, Vice President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Defense, inaugurated and laid in Riyadh on Monday the founding stones for as many as seven strategic projects, in the domains of renewable and atomic energy, water desalination, genetic medicine and aircraft manufacturing, during a visit to King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST).
The projects comprised three giant projects, including Saudi Arabia‘s first nuclear research reactor and a center for developing aircraft fuselage, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
HRH Crown Prince was received by the Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Eng. Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Faleh, who is also Chairman of KACST; and Prince Turki bin Saud bin Mohammed, the President of KACST.
HRH Crown Prince also inaugurated the Saudi Central Laboratory for Human Genome, which documents a map for genetics of the Saudi society, in order to discover genetic mutations that may cause hereditary diseases, in addition to solar energy-powered desalination station, in Khafji, with a capacity of 60,000 cubic meter per day; two production lines for solar panels and cells; and a laboratory to check credibility of solar panels, to be based in Uyaynah, entertaining requirements of ISO certificate 9001 and certificates of the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC), related to the conformity of products to the world standards.
HRH also launched incubators and accelerators located in each of Dammam, Qassim, Al-Madinah Al-Munawarah and Abha, as part of Bader program, which currently heads the Arab Network for ICT Incubators and UN technological cities in the Arab world.
Among the projects which the HRH Crown Prince laid their foundation stones is a desalination plant in the city of Yanbu powered with solar energy, with a capacity of 5200 cubic meters per day. It is the first industrial application model that uses desalination absorption technology. The projects also included laying the foundation stone of a low-energy nuclear research reactor, the Kingdom's first of its kind. HRH Crown Prince also laid the foundation stone for a center for the development of aircraft fuselage, located, at King Khalid International Airport.
Upon arrival at KACST, HRH the Crown Prince watched a visual presentation of the city’s strategies and objectives aimed at investment and development in researches by coordinating national activities of science, technology and innovation, policies and strategies for researching and developing in the field of innovation and providing support for scientific research and technological development in the Kingdom, in addition to backing up innovation and enhancing local, regional and international cooperation and partnerships for technology transfer and localization.
Following the presentation, he inspected the latest developments in aviation and radar projects, affiliating to the National Center for Aviation Technology.
Then, HRH Crown Prince got acquainted with the latest achievements at the Innovation Center for Industry 4, namely the Smart Factory, which includes a number of advanced production and manufacturing departments, virtual reality, information security, IoT, cloud computing, systems integration, simulation, automation, robots, and macro data handling.
HRH Crown Prince was also briefed on satellite projects, including Saudi Sat 5A and Saudi Sat 5B, the second generation of the most accurate remote sensing satellites, in Saudi Arabia. He also listened to an explanation of the safe national wave of tactical communications systems, the internet national exchange, the fast-speed network for the academic, industrial and health sectors as well as advanced material projects, the carbonic fiber production lab and Aluminum-produced Nano materials (MOF-303), which can absorb water from the atmosphere, at low humidity, making it suitable for dry areas with shallow water resources, and bio-technological projects and energy and water projects.
