IIoT-Based Industry Transformation In Saudi Arabia

The main idea behind Industry 4.0 was to enable the interaction of the physical and digital worlds and promote automation to increase the productivity and efficiency of operations. From this standpoint, Saudi Arabia has adopted the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, given the compatibility of the goals and ambitions of Vision 2030 related to the Saudi industry with the pioneering technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the principles of the Fifth Industrial Revolution that will shortly take place. To achieve the purpose of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is the primary technology that acts as a bridge to intelligently connect and communicate both the real and virtual worlds in the industry. To shape and clarify the path of the Saudi industry towards 2030, the future of the Saudi industry in terms of the Industrial Internet of Things will be investigated through this paper. An overview of the transformation of the industrial sectors such as energy, mining, industry, and logistics towards deploying IIoT will be provided, and the benefits brought by this technology to the industry will be discussed. The main contribution of this paper is to study the development of the Internet of Things and the transformation of industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in addition to the emergence of the Fifth Industrial Revolution and the driving technologies behind the vision of the industry development and its implementations in the Kingdom to keep pace with the Fifth Industrial Revolution.