The vision was not wrong. The sequence was. You cannot build a mirror city in a desert and then figure out how to power it. Every great industrial project in history began with energy. Then everything else followed.
NEOM is not a failed idea. It is a correct idea executed in the wrong sequence. The vision — a zero-carbon city of the future, built from scratch in one of the most resource-rich locations on earth — is genuinely compelling. The Red Sea coastline. The extraordinary solar irradiance. The geopolitical stability of Saudi capital. The ambition of Vision 2030. These are real advantages that very few locations on earth can match simultaneously.
But NEOM began with the building. The Line — a 170-kilometre mirrored skyscraper city. Sindalah — the luxury island. Oxagon — the floating industrial complex. Billions committed to architecture and concept before the one question that determines whether any of it is viable was answered: where does the power come from?
When investors asked that question and found the answer unclear, they left. Not because the vision was unconvincing — but because a city without a power grid is not a city. It is a rendering.
"You cannot build a $1 trillion city in a desert and then figure out how to power it. Every serious industrial project in history began with energy. Roads. Power. Water. Then everything else followed."
This is not a new insight. It is one of the most consistent patterns in the history of economic development. The Tennessee Valley Authority did not build cities first and power plants later. It built dams — the Hoover, the Grand Coulee — and industrial clusters followed the electricity. Shenzhen did not attract factories and then build the grid. It built infrastructure first, and the factories arrived within years.
The pattern repeats everywhere. Dubai's early growth was anchored in port infrastructure and energy subsidies — before the towers came. Iceland's extraordinary aluminium industry exists entirely because geothermal energy made electricity almost free. Norway's sovereign wealth fund was built on oil — energy first, everything else second.
The sequence is never reversed in successful cases. Energy first. Always.
The rescheduling is not failure. It is an opportunity to correct the sequence. The window is still open. And the corrected strategy is straightforward.
Solar farms across the plateau. Wind turbines along the Red Sea corridor where consistent winds blow year-round. Pumped hydro storage using the elevation difference between the plateau and the coast — no dam needed, the geography provides the reservoir. This is not experimental technology. It is proven, deployable, and getting cheaper every quarter. Commission it now. Build it fast.
Do not build exactly what NEOM needs. Build 3x what NEOM needs. Surplus clean energy in a geopolitically stable zone is one of the most attractive investment propositions on earth in 2026. Green hydrogen production. Data centre cooling. Energy-intensive manufacturing that cannot locate near expensive European or American grids. The surplus is the product.
Once surplus clean energy exists at NEOM scale — 50 gigawatts, 100 gigawatts — the phone starts ringing. Green steel manufacturers. Semiconductor fabs that need enormous power. Desalination at scale. AI data centres. Carbon-negative cement plants. These industries are actively looking for locations with cheap, clean, reliable power. NEOM becomes that location. No marketing required. Power is the marketing.
When the workers arrive — and they will — the city follows organically. Housing, schools, hospitals, retail, entertainment. The city is not the product. The city is the consequence of getting the product right. This is how Shenzhen happened. This is how Houston happened. The industry came first. The city grew around it.
Announce the city. Design the architecture. Commission the renderings. Build the towers. Then ask — how do we power all of this?
Result: investors ask the power question, find no answer, and leave. Construction pauses. Timeline reschedules. Credibility damaged.
Build solar. Build wind. Store energy. Create surplus. Demonstrate the power grid working at scale. Then invite the world.
Result: investors arrive because cheap clean energy is the scarcest industrial input of the next 30 years. The city builds itself.
NEOM is the most visible example, but the same error is replicated across megaprojects globally. A new capital city in Egypt — built before the grid. A tech park in West Africa — designed before the power supply. An industrial corridor in South Asia — announced before the transmission infrastructure. In every case, the sequence is wrong. In every case, investors hesitate for the same reason.
The lesson generalises. Any government, any sovereign wealth fund, any development authority planning a megaproject should answer one question before all others: where does the power come from, and when will it be reliable and surplus? If that question does not have a fully funded, fully scheduled answer — stop. Build the power first. Everything else is a rendering until the lights come on.
Saudi Arabia has the solar resource, the wind resource, the capital, and the political will. The geography of NEOM — plateau above sea level, Red Sea winds, extreme solar irradiance — is genuinely exceptional. The ingredients exist. The only thing that needs to change is the order in which they are used.
"Build the power grid first. The moment you have surplus clean energy in the desert — investors arrive without invitation. Power is the marketing."
The rescheduling of NEOM is not the end of the story. It is the pause before the rewrite. The rewrite begins with a solar panel and a wind turbine and a storage system — not a mirror and a rendering. Get the sequence right and the vision is entirely achievable. Get it wrong again and the desert will reclaim the construction sites quietly, as deserts always do.
Part of an ongoing journal — observations recorded when something in the world economy is worth saying. No schedule. No noise. The next entry when there is something worth adding.