Saudi Arabia Slows The Line Trading Spectacle for Strategy

Saudi Arabia’s flagship futuristic city project, The Line, has been pushed down the kingdom’s list of immediate development priorities, marking one of the clearest signs yet that Riyadh is recalibrating the most spectacular promises of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030.

The project has not been officially cancelled, but recent statements by the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund point to a major shift in the kingdom’s development strategy away from the most expensive and speculative giga-projects, and toward infrastructure, logistics, industrial zones, data centers, tourism assets, and projects tied to Saudi Arabia’s near-term global hosting commitments.

The Line is the flagship urban project inside NEOM, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic development in Tabuk Province and one of the most ambitious symbols of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 agenda.

Announced in 2021, it was presented as a car-free, street-free, carbon-free smart city built as a single linear structure stretching 170 kilometers through the desert, 500 meters high and 200 meters wide, with a mirrored-glass exterior and capacity for as many as nine million residents.

Saudi officials previously suggested that NEOM could eventually house around nine million people, making it not only a real-estate project but also a political and ideological statement about Saudi Arabia’s post-oil future.

By 2024, after roughly $50 billion had already been spent, The Line was reportedly struggling with major cost overruns and repeated delays. According to the Wall Street Journal, a 2023 draft board presentation estimated that the full project might not be completed until 2080 and could cost as much as $8.8 trillion, while the first phase alone could require $370 billion by 2035, largely financed by the Saudi state in the hope of drawing private investment later.

By the end of 2025, the project appeared to have stalled, with reports indicating that construction activity had stopped.

Semafor reported in late May that NEOM had delayed further work on The Line until after 2030, citing people familiar with the matter. The report said the decision followed a strategic review and that NEOM would instead focus more heavily on projects considered more immediately productive, including Oxagon, the industrial and port city on the Red Sea.

According to Semafor, NEOM also postponed further investment in some Red Sea tourism components and in Trojena, the mountain resort originally selected to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games.

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the PIF, said in April that no NEOM project had been cancelled, but he also acknowledged that NEOM had been directed to reprioritize its plans and that completing The Line by 2030 was not essential. “Is it necessary to complete The Line by 2030? I believe not,” he told Al Arabiya, adding that The Line was only one part of NEOM, not the whole project.

Riyadh appears to be redefining what NEOM should deliver first. Oxagon, with its port, industrial base, data connectivity, and potential role in attracting artificial intelligence and data-center investment, now fits more clearly with the kingdom’s new economic priorities than a 170-kilometer experimental city whose cost, engineering complexity, and population assumptions have faced growing scrutiny.

The PIF’s new 2026–2030 strategy would focus more heavily on domestic investment, with 80 percent of investments directed locally and a smaller share going abroad. The strategy groups priority areas around tourism and entertainment, urban development, advanced manufacturing, logistics, clean energy, water, renewables, and NEOM.

Saudi officials have signaled a move away from costly giga-projects with unclear or limited financial returns toward investments that can generate more direct economic value.

The shift follows months of evidence that Saudi Arabia’s mega-project model was under pressure. Last year, the PIF had taken an $8 billion write-down on some of its highest-profile giga-projects, reflecting cost overruns, delays, and changing market conditions.

The Financial Times later reported that The Line’s first phase had been dramatically scaled back after costs ballooned, timelines slipped, and the foreign investment Riyadh expected failed to materialize at the required scale.

The delay of the 2029 Asian Winter Games added another signal. Saudi Arabia’s Olympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Asia agreed to postpone the games indefinitely. The event had been scheduled for Trojena, NEOM’s planned mountain resort. The official explanation avoided direct criticism of the project, but the postponement reinforced the sense that the kingdom is stretching timelines for some of Vision 2030’s most ambitious promises.

The recalibration comes at a sensitive fiscal moment. Saudi Arabia remains the world’s leading oil exporter, but budget deficits, major domestic spending commitments, and preparations for Expo 2030 in Riyadh and the 2034 FIFA World Cup have increased pressure on public investment priorities. The PIF must now balance the political symbolism of Vision 2030 with the practical need to finance infrastructure, industrial capacity, tourism, logistics, and technology sectors that can support diversification beyond oil.

For years, The Line functioned as the most powerful visual metaphor of Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia: immense ambition, centralized planning, futuristic branding, and a desire to leap beyond the constraints of existing urban models. Its partial retreat does not mean Vision 2030 has failed. But it does show that the kingdom’s transformation agenda is entering a more pragmatic phase.