General Electric (GE) has announced $100 million worth of new programs that will further the company’s localization efforts, build innovation capacity, and create jobs in advanced manufacturing and software analytics.

This new investment adds to GE’s $1 billion commitment over the past three years in the Kingdom, and aligns the company with the country’s Vision 2024 and Ninth Development Plan to diversify the economy, drive industrialization and manufacturing, and build the next generation of human capital skill sets in materials and data science.

The research and manufacturing programs will aim at enhancing the energy efficiency and sustainability priorities of the country. In manufacturing, GE will expand its facilities in Saudi Arabia for the region with the production of GE’s HA gas turbines, claimed to be the world’s largest and most efficient gas turbine, at GE Manufacturing Technology Center in Dammam.

The oil and gas facility in Dammam will include the manufacturing of wellheads, Christmas Trees and other Pressure Control technologies as well as well performance services repair capability for submersible pumps. GE is also planning a first of its kind regional LED manufacturing facility.

In R&D, today’s announcement places the Saudi GE Innovation Center in Dhahran Techno Valley at the heart of the company’s technology innovation ecosystem in the Kingdom. The programs include a hot and harsh Global R&D program, a software and analytics industrial Internet lab, a GE "in Saudi for region" hub for energy efficiency technology development as well as a monitoring and diagnostics center at GE Manufacturing Technology Center.

Jeffrey Immelt, GE Chairman & CEO, said: “We are proud to work with our partners to co-create solutions that will find application both in Saudi Arabia and globally. We believe that future skill sets demand strong capability in both software and hardware; and we are committed to delivering that.”