Saudi Arabia's cyber diplomacy

In a deeply polarised arena, the kingdom is carving out its niche in global cybersecurity cooperation

One does not usually count Saudi Arabia among the leading countries in cyberspace, and yet it is making impressive advances in the domain. For the second year running, it ranks second in the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU’s) Global Cybersecurity Index.

The Global Cybersecurity Forum (GCF), hosted by the country, is an annual international conference bringing governments, businesses, and cyber experts from across the world to deliberate on a whole range of issues associated with cybersecurity, including the technical, political, social, and even philosophical dimensions relevant to it. The forum was set up in 2021 during Saudi Arabia’s presidency of the G20, and its third edition took place this year on November 1 and 2. I attended the second forum in November last year and shared my impressions of a rapidly changing Saudi Arabia in my column (Change is Afoot in Saudi Arabia, November 16, 2022). I was invited again this year to speak at the opening plenary and shared the stage with Jose Manuel Barroso, former President of the European Commission and former Prime Minister of Portugal, and Kersti Kaljulaid, former President of Estonia. The latter was closely associated with building her country’s cyber-defence against relentless cyber attacks allegedly originating from Russia.

The plenary focused on enhancing multilateral cooperation on cybersecurity in a deeply polarised geopolitical arena, with wars raging between Ukraine and Russia, and now between Israel and Hamas next door. This is further overlaid by the deepening confrontation between the US and China. Despite a fraught international situation, the Saudi effort to create a relatively neutral space to enable engagement, even among adversaries, was welcomed. We spoke about the promise of the digital economy. India’s success in using digital technology as an instrument for achieving inclusiveness drew considerable interest.

There was an exchange on the challenges lying ahead, including the impact of advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Our minds are analog structures and find it difficult to wrap around an increasingly digital world. The subtle nuances that an analog mind is capable of are lost in the precise determinism of the digital space. There must be limits to outsourcing human sensibilities to non-human entities.

It was also agreed that political leadership and decision makers have little awareness of the cyber domain and the dangers of it remaining an unregulated space. It was felt that forums, such as those hosted by Saudi Arabia, could play an important role in enhancing understanding of this technology, both in its positive and negative aspects. After all, you cannot regulate what you cannot understand.

Saudi Arabia has set up an autonomous Global Cybersecurity Institute, which brings together cyber experts from across the world and aims to promote research on a range of issues, including child protection in cyberspace, bridging the gender gap in the domain, and assessing the impact of AI on cybersecurity. The cyber domain remains an ungoverned space, lacking even basic norms and standards, let alone any multilateral legal regime. The Saudi effort is to nudge the world in that direction.

Some of the international attention from the GCF was deflected towards the AI summit being held at the Bletchley Park near London on the same dates, November 1 and 2. It was convened by the UK and attended by representatives of 28 countries, including India. The participants included government ministers, business leaders, tech executives, and computer scientists. Its focus was narrower than the GCF, with AI and its global regulation being the main agenda item. The GCF has a broader canvas, which includes AI. India had very thin attendance at the GCF, both from the government as well as non-governmental institutions. Government, business and technical experts could benefit from the wide-ranging agenda covered at the forum, and also use it to showcase India’s own considerable advances in the digital space.

In my previous column on Saudi Arabia, I had drawn attention to the sweeping political, economic, and, above all, social changes taking place in the kingdom. Nowhere is this more visible than in the changing status of women in the country. Before the current reforms were introduced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi women were highly educated but unable to work except in very limited fields, such as medicine and education catering to women. Now, there has been an overnight addition of several million highly educated women to the workforce, literally doubling the skills available in the country. The Saudi cyber agency itself has a significant number of women in its ranks. Since my last visit to Riyadh, even more changes were visible. The ruins of the old city of Riyadh, known as Diriyah, have been carefully and imaginatively restored. They are now an archaeological park, adjacent to which a large entertainment zone has been laid out. This has an impressive array of restaurants serving international cuisine, high-end shops selling well-known international brands, and open-air venues for music concerts.

The ongoing Israel-Hamas war had not yet become a major public preoccupation in the Saudi capital, but there was an undercurrent of anxiety. Hopes of establishing diplomatic relations with Israel have gone into deep freeze. There are fears that the war will escalate and bring in Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Saudi and Iranian leaders have been in touch and at the Arab-Islamic summit convened recently by Saudi Arabia, the President of Iran was an invitee, which would have been unthinkable just a few months ago. The Hamas terrorist attack against Israel and the ferocity of Israel’s retaliation in Gaza have brought the Palestinian issue front and centre of West Asian politics. The US effort to mainstream Israel into the regional security architecture, marginalising the Palestinians and excluding Iran, is now a failure. India’s own tightrope walk in the region, cultivating parallel partnerships with both Israel and the Gulf states, has become more complex as sentiment against Israel builds up due to its atrocities continuing to mount in Gaza. Relations with the region’s most consequential actor, Saudi Arabia, have just become critically important.

The writer is a former foreign secretary and an honorary fellow at the Centre for Policy Research