Seoul, Nov 18 (IANS): South Korean tech giant Naver said on Monday it will establish a joint venture with Saudi Arabia's state housing company to collaborate for digital twin platform projects in the Middle East.

Naver and Saudi Arabia's National Housing Company signed a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of the joint venture during Cityscape Global 2024, a Middle Eastern real estate convention, held in Riyadh last week, according to the Korean company.

Digital twin platforms, which provide virtual representations of a real world entity or space, can be used as foundation models in creating smart cities and public digital services, including urban planning, monitoring and predicting natural disasters, reports Yonhap news agency.

The envisioned joint venture will be in charge of Naver's digital twin platform business and other projects, such as developing a city monitoring platform and map application for public administration, in the Middle East.

Last year, the operator of South Korea's largest internet portal won a deal with the Saudi Arabian government to create a digital twin platform for Riyadh and four other Saudi cities.

Naver said recently it has plans to establish a Middle Eastern unit in Saudi Arabia within this year as part of efforts to expand its global business.

The new unit, tentatively named Naver Arabia, will be in charge of Naver's business projects in Saudi Arabia, including the creation of a digital twin platform for five Saudi cities and the development of an Arabic-based large language model, according to the Korean company.

Naver Arabia will also push to establish joint ventures with local entities for various projects.

Naver has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) to cooperate in various sectors, including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data centres and robots.