Saudi Arabia's metaverse moment: $7.6B of the GCC's $15B

Half of the Gulf's metaverse economy, in one country

The most quoted number in this conversation comes from PwC: the metaverse will contribute USD 15 billion to GCC economies by 2030, and Saudi Arabia will take a share of about USD 7.6 billion — more than half. A 2023 report on metaverse technology published in the Kingdom, drawing on PwC, McKinsey, Gartner, BCG and Ipsos, adds the investment picture: 51 per cent of GCC metaverse investment sits in Saudi Arabia, followed by the UAE at 22 per cent, Qatar at 11, Kuwait at 7, Oman at 5 and Bahrain at 4.

Set against the global figures the Gulf numbers are small. McKinsey's 2022 estimate was that metaverse applications could reach USD 5 trillion in value by 2030; the global market was already roughly USD 47 billion in 2022. Gartner predicted in 2022 that by 2026 a quarter of the world's population would spend at least an hour a day in some form of metaverse — a prediction whose deadline is this year, and which we would call directionally right and numerically generous.

What makes the Saudi figure interesting is not its size but its concentration. Half of a regional economy landing in one country, whose government has an explicit digital transformation agenda, whose population is unusually young and whose largest construction projects are designed in 3D before a foundation is poured. That is a market with a shape, and the shape tells you where the work will be.

Tourism first: 22 per cent of investment and 100 million visitors

The sector breakdown in the same report puts travel and tourism at about 22 per cent of total metaverse investment by 2030 — the largest single sector, ahead of games, retail and banking. In Saudi Arabia that is not a coincidence. The national target is to raise the travel sector's contribution to around 10 per cent of GDP by welcoming 100 million tourists by 2030, and the UNWTO reported in October 2022 that the Kingdom led Arab countries with 18 million visitors in the first nine months of that year.

Bringing 100 million people to a country they have mostly never seen is a marketing problem before it is an infrastructure problem, and it is exactly the problem virtual experiences solve. The report describes the use case plainly: virtual tours of cultural and historical landmarks, and exhibitions that let tourists plan trips safely and explore destinations virtually ahead of the visit. A UNESCO World Heritage tomb in the north-west of the Kingdom has already been recreated in a public virtual world — the first such site to be, according to the report.

This is where much of our own Saudi work concentrates. A destination experience that puts a hologram tour guide and an AI avatar in a visitor centre, speaking the visitor's language; a heritage metaverse that lets a family in Jakarta walk a historic city before they book the flight. The demand is not for technology. It is for arrivals, and the technology is the brochure that can be walked through.

A country where 65 per cent of people are under 35

The second fact is demographic and it changes how every other number should be read. According to the same report, 65 per cent of Saudi Arabia's population is under 35 years old. This is the generation that grew up with games as a social space, that is comfortable represented by an avatar, and that — in the report's international survey — sees the metaverse's positive potential in overcoming disabilities (39 per cent), enhancing creativity (37 per cent) and travelling the world without moving (37 per cent).

The report also notes that gaming already commands the largest share of consumer spending on AR and VR, at more than USD 3 billion worldwide in 2020, and that the games sector accounts for 16 per cent of forecast GCC metaverse investment. For a brand, this means the interface problem that slowed enterprise VR in older markets is largely absent. A Saudi audience does not need to be taught what an avatar is or how to navigate a 3D space. They need a reason to be there.

That shifts the design brief. In markets with older populations we spend time making virtual spaces feel like websites. In Saudi Arabia we spend time making them feel like places, because the audience already expects a place. It also explains why immersive learning lands well: our Nplay Scholar training platform, in development, is aimed at exactly this audience of students and young professionals who would rather dissect a 3D engine than read about one.

Giga-projects: designed as twins, delivered as experiences

The third fact is physical. Saudi Arabia is building a series of giga-projects — new cities, coastal destinations, entertainment districts — at a scale and pace that has no recent parallel. The report cites one of them as having produced the first 3D digital twin of a physical place, and another as planned to be the largest theme park in the world, nearly three times the size of its best-known American equivalent.

What matters for this discussion is how they are being built. A giga-project is designed in 3D, coordinated in 3D and increasingly marketed in 3D long before it exists. That means the digital twin is not an add-on commissioned after opening; it is a by-product of construction. The same model that coordinates the contractors becomes the virtual tour for investors, the training environment for staff, the facilities-management platform for the operator, and — eventually — the metaverse destination for visitors who cannot travel.

We wrote about the operational side in digital twins for Saudi giga-projects. The point here is commercial: when the twin already exists, the marginal cost of a virtual experience falls sharply, and the question for a brand or institution stops being “should we build a metaverse presence” and becomes “what should people do in the model we already have”.

Four practical entry points for brands and institutions

Forecasts do not tell a marketing director or a dean what to do on Monday. Based on the projects we have delivered and the enquiries we receive in Riyadh, these are the four entry points that are working now.

• Virtual and hybrid events. A branded booth at a virtual exhibition or a 3D venue alongside the physical one. Low risk, measurable, and the fastest way for a team to learn how their audience behaves as avatars. Our Nplay Nexus platform, in development, is built for this.
• Digital-twin campuses and facilities. A university, a hospital or a headquarters modelled in 3D, used for admissions, training, wayfinding and maintenance. We delivered a complete campus twin for a Jordanian university and the same approach transfers directly to Saudi institutions.
• Heritage and destination experiences. Hologram guides and AI avatars in visitor centres, virtual tours for the audience abroad. Where the 22 per cent of tourism investment will be spent.
• Immersive training. 3D, interactive training for industrial, medical and vocational learners — a young workforce entering new sectors quickly.

Underneath all four we are building Nplay Core, a low-code immersive engine intended to let organisations assemble these environments themselves with AI avatars, multiplayer and real-time rendering. It is in development, and it is our bet on what the USD 7.6 billion will actually be spent on: not one metaverse, but thousands of small, purposeful places.

What the numbers do not say

We should end with the caveats, because a company that sells immersive technology quoting a USD 7.6 billion forecast should be read carefully.

The figures come from a 2023 report and from analysts writing in 2022, at the height of metaverse enthusiasm. Some of the platforms it mentions have since retreated; some of the predictions — Gartner's hour-a-day by 2026 — will be judged this year and will probably fall short. The report itself lists four drawbacks that have not gone away: the technology is not affordable for everyone, privacy and security are unresolved, virtual worlds can be addictive, and regulation lags behind development.

Our reading is that the direction is right and the timing is slower than the headlines. The projects that are being funded in Saudi Arabia today are not “the metaverse” in the abstract; they are digital twins, virtual events, heritage experiences and training environments with a budget line and a KPI. That is where we work, and it is where we would advise any brand to start — with one purposeful place, measured, before believing anyone's total.