Incredible aerial photos show progress of £156bn new megacity in the desert

A series of newly released photos have revealed the progress of the work on the new megacity - estimated to cost £156.7 billion but may be as high as £783 billion - being built in the largest desert in Asia and the fifth largest in the world. 

The images, shared by the chief operating officer, Giles Pendleton on LinkedIn, show construction is well underway on the controversial project.

They show aerial photos of the excavations, which are planned to stretch for over 100 miles across the country. Shots also show the hotels under construction at the island resort and preparation works at a third site. 

The megacity, known as The Line, Oxagon port and the Sindalah resort are being built as part of Neom in Saudi Arabia.

The city is one of the nine announced regions of Neom and is part of the Saudi Vision 2030 project, in which the country will create just under half a million jobs and add an estimated £37.6 billion to the country’s GDP. The Line is planned to be the first development of the over £391 billion project. 

The Line is eventually planned to be 110 miles long, and could stretch from the Red Sea to the city of Tabuk with around nine million residents. The plan consists of two mirrored buildings with an outdoor space in between, having a total width of 200 metres and a height of 500 metres. This would make it the third tallest building in the country, after the Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower and the proposed Jeddah Tower, and the 12th tallest in the world. 

The city is planned to be entirely powered by renewable energy. It will consist of three layers, two underground for infrastructure and transportation, and one on the surface for pedestrians. AI is set to monitor the city and use predictive and data models to find ways to improve the daily life of its citizens. 

In April 2024, it was reported by Bloomberg News that the project had been scaled back due to restrictions over funding by the Public Investment Fund (PIF). Saudi officials expected a 2030 completion of a 1.5-mile section of the city, which would host less than 300,000 residents - a reduction of over 98 percent. 

Neom is one of the world’s largest, and most controversial, developments. The project had been criticised on human rights grounds, including by the organisation ALQST, which reported that three men were sentenced to death after being “forcibly evicted” from the site in 2022. 

One of these men was the brother of a gentleman who was shot dead by security forces in April 2020 in his home in the Tabuk province earmarked for Neom, after he posted videos on social media opposing the displacement of local residents. Experts from the UN Human Rights Council expressed “alarm” over the executions last year, while Saudi Arabia denied the abuses had taken place, wrote dezeen. 

There are also environmental concerns. Philip Oldfield of the University of New South Wales, in conversation with deezen, estimated that the project would have a carbon footprint of about 1.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in the glass, steel, and concrete. He added that He said the 110-mile profile would create a large-scale barrier to adjacent ecosystems and migratory species similar to that created by highways, and the mirrored exterior facade would be dangerous for birds. 

According to Pendleton, The Line’s COO, the images - published in a post titled: “Neom is real”, proves that the project was moving forward. 

“How to answer the naysayers about the incredible work being done in Neom?” he wrote.

"Show a cross-section of the world's largest building site from the mountains to the sea," he continued.

"Massive excavations on The Line, the future of island resorts on Sindalah and the next generation of ports and logistics at Oxagon."

Construction at the Sindalah resort appears to be particularly advanced, with the structure of the majority of hotel buildings complete. Designed by the Italian studio Luca Dini Design and Architecture, the luxury island resort in the Red Sea is planned as the first of Neom's regions to be completed. It is expected to begin welcoming guests this year. The island will be home to a world-class golf course and will have no cars or roads. 

The images of The Line site show the groundwork stretching across the desert as well as some of the structures that have been built to house people working on the project. Meanwhile, at Oxagon, which is being designed by Danish studio BIG, captures work progressing to develop the existing port on the Red Sea.