It’ll be interesting to see how the Arab states will diversify their economies in the next decade. There’s really not much to exploit there except oil, so unless they pump out enough money to basically rest on their investments in perpetuity I’m really not sure what to expect.
They have deserts for solar energy and cheap workers. What else do they need?
Food and fresh water
Desalination is cheap enough for human consumption. It can be too expensive to grow food but food can be imported.
I would actually love to see Saudi Arabia take the lead on food engineering. They might lack fresh water, but they have immense amounts of land and sun to play with.
The only alternative I can see is a mass reforestation project.
Properly scaled up, this type of community reforestation effort could work.
The wisdom of these gigprojects in the middle of a desert aside, it would be awesome more governments would stop trying to run themselves into the ground for profit. Because who the fuck is benefiting if a country is taking more in taxes then they are providing their citizens in services?