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Internal Audit Pressures Saudi Megaproject and Reopens Debate on Costs. Audit Report Cited by the Financial Times Indicates Scope Reduction of NEOM, with Reuse of What Has Already Been Built and Reorientation Toward More Viable Goals. Pressure from Deadlines for Expo 2030 and the 2034 World Cup Weighs on the Decision. Discussion Includes Focus on Digital Infrastructure, Such as Data Centers.
Saudi Arabia is discussing a deep redesign of NEOM, its main megaproject in the northwest of the country, after an internal audit began recommending cuts and directional changes.
According to a report from the Financial Times, auditors suggest reducing the scope of the project, making use of structures already initiated, and directing the strategy toward initiatives with more tangible returns, including the possibility of turning part of the area into a digital infrastructure hub, such as a data center.
The diagnosis comes at a time when the Saudi government needs to manage high-profile international commitments, such as Expo 2030 in Riyadh and the 2034 World Cup.
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These events, already confirmed by international organizations, increase the pressure for deadlines, investments, and concrete deliveries, reducing the margin for delays and projects with a longer maturation horizon.
Scope Reduction in NEOM Enters the Radar of the Saudi Government
According to sources interviewed by the Financial Times, the review of NEOM was close to being finalized and left little room for marginal adjustments.
The evaluation, according to the newspaper, places Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the face of a practical necessity: to apply additional cuts and reconfigure construction plans so that the project becomes “much smaller”, with goals more compatible with the financial and operational constraints described in the audit.
Instead of simultaneously sustaining a number of massive fronts with ambitious timelines, the reorientation discussed in the report would prioritize what has already advanced and what can be connected to revenue and immediate use.
In this context, the possibility of giving NEOM a role more connected to digital services and technology infrastructure is presented as an alternative to reduce the mismatch between promises and execution capacity, according to the same report.
Nevertheless, the text from the Financial Times treats the movement as a reconfiguration of priorities, rather than a formal closure of the project.
The understanding is that it is a cut that tries to preserve part of the investment already made while limiting the risk of maintaining expansion at a pace incompatible with available funding.
Expo 2030 and the 2034 World Cup Increase Pressure for Deliveries
The discussion about reducing NEOM occurs alongside the need to mobilize resources for projects related to Expo 2030 and the 2034 World Cup.
In the case of the World Expo, Riyadh was chosen as the host city in a vote by the Bureau International des Expositions, with an official schedule from October 1, 2030, to March 31, 2031.
The 2034 World Cup has already been confirmed by FIFA in December 2024, in a process that officially named Saudi Arabia as the host of the competition.
Practically speaking, this creates a roadmap of construction and logistical requirements that depend not only on planning but also on strict execution, which tends to concentrate decisions and funds on deliveries with set dates.
This combination of deadlines and global showcase helps explain why an internal audit may gain political weight in the management of NEOM.
When the country needs to reconcile economic diversification goals with committed obligations, projects considered difficult to sustain in their original format are reviewed more quickly.
PIF Sovereign Fund and the Challenge of Financing Megaprojects
The original text attributes the squeeze to the “collapse of the $1 trillion fund” and describes the Saudi Public Investment Fund as having “almost $1 billion.”
However, the latest public data from PIF itself indicates a different order of magnitude: the fund reported that its assets under management reached $913 billion at the end of 2024.
This does not eliminate the discussion about restrictions, because the fund and domestic megaprojects are subject to adjustments, reevaluations, and portfolio changes.
A report by the Financial Times published in 2025 indicated that PIF recorded a write-down in 2024 of $8 billion related to domestic megaprojects and cited pressures associated with costs and operational revisions, in a scenario where projects under the Vision 2030 strategy remain at the center of the Saudi economic agenda.
In this context, the audit mentioned in the new report appears as part of an effort to make NEOM more executable and less dependent on continuous expansion.
In other words, the point is not only the ambition of the urban design but also the capacity to sustain contracts, timelines, and funding simultaneously, without compromising other fronts considered strategic by the government.
What Is NEOM and Why Did The Line Become a Global Showcase
Announced in 2017, NEOM was presented as one of the pillars to diversify the Saudi economy and reduce dependence on oil, connecting investments, tourism, and new industries to a large area in the northwest of the country.
The launch of the project was announced by the official Saudi agency in a communication attributed to the Crown Prince.
Within this framework, The Line gained prominence for promising a linear and highly planned city, designed as a technological and urban showcase.
The idea was publicly revealed in 2021, in an announcement reported by Reuters, which described the proposal as part of NEOM and linked to a narrative of a “zero-carbon” city, with a strong appeal to innovation and reorganization of urban space.
Over time, the design of The Line itself has been treated, in international reports, as a symbol of the tensions between scale, cost, and execution.
In November 2024, Reuters reported revisions to NEOM, focusing on elements considered priorities for sports events and reducing what would be delivered in the short term, citing, for example, a concentration on a smaller section of the linear project.
It is in this environment that the expression that the plan risks ceasing to be a “mirage in the desert” only as provocation and turning into a warning about the extent of the adjustment necessary to align ambition and budget is regaining strength.
The audit mentioned by the Financial Times fits into this same line: reduce, reorder, and try to assign immediate uses to what has already been set in motion.
With so many international commitments on the horizon and a project that has already consumed years of planning and construction, how far will the Saudi government be able to recalibrate NEOM without emptying the promise that transformed The Line into a global showcase?
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