How stc group Built the System Beneath the City of Play Saudi Arabia is no longer emerging on the global sports map. It is there, recognized by fans, marked by presence, and impossible to overlook. In boxing alone, the Kingdom has staged some of the sport’s most significant modern bouts, including the undisputed heavyweight championship fight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh, a contest that unified every major title and brought global attention to Saudi Arabia as a destination for elite live sport. Beyond the ring, the Kingdom has built an entertainment calendar that signals a new era for the world stage. What is unfolding now goes deeper than high-profile events. Saudi Arabia is not just hosting. It is engineering the infrastructure that makes global entertainment native to its cities, built to last, scale, and resonate long after the crowds have gone. Nowhere is this new vision more vivid than in Qiddiya City, which officially opened in December 2025. Rising from the desert forty-five kilometers outside Riyadh, the 360-square-kilometer site is conceived not as a conventional city, but as a destination built entirely around Play Life. It is the first city in the Kingdom dedicated to play, positioned as a national asset and a reflection of Saudi Arabia’s evolving identity. At the heart of its first phase is Six Flags Qiddiya City, a theme park boasting twenty-eight attractions, including five world- record rides. Among these is Falcons Flight, presented by stc, the world’s tallest, fastest, and longest roller coaster, plunging from 195 meters and reaching speeds of 250 kilometers per hour. Qiddiya City’s significance goes beyond world record- breaking attractions. Engineering a world-class coaster is a visible achievement, but what truly sets the city apart and ultimately determines its success is the ability to welcome and host millions of visitors.
Qididya City and its assets required worldclass infrastructure capable of supporting the operations while remaining invisible to the guest. This is where stc steps in. As the Official Premier Speed Partner of Six Flags Qiddiya City, the group engineered the digital backbone that supports every layer of the digital guest experience. stc’s digital infrastructure powers contactless ride access, seamless payments across all platforms, and full integration with Qitaf, stc’s loyalty program, allowing guests to redeem points for tickets, purchases, and experiences. The entire ICT environment functions as one seamless environment, built to manage high demand, minimise friction, and keep the experience moving from start to finish. The work stc delivered at Six Flags Qiddiya City was built as a launch point for something larger. Every component of the system was developed with future expansion in mind, allowing it to serve as a foundational model for Qiddiya City ’s long-term infrastructure. The five-year partnership between stc group and Qiddiya Investment Company for the first assets to open, such as Six Flags and Aquarabia Qiddiya City, formalizes this vision, establishing an initial framework where physical construction, operations and digital architecture evolve tandem. The focus is not on scaling a single experience but on defining how large-scale entertainment environments are designed, deployed, and sustained over time. This vision reflects a broader shift in how entertainment is embedded into Saudi Arabia’s long-term trajectory. The Kingdom’s arenas are evolving. From Riyadh Season’s headline boxing nights to flagship events like the Italian and Spanish Supercups and the Esports World Cup, the country is moving beyond individual spectacles to create full-scale destinations that reshape how live, immersive experiences are imagined and delivered. This includes boxing’s evolution within the Kingdom, which has moved beyond one-off headline bouts to structured international competitions, such as the Riyadh Season WBC Boxing Grand Prix - a multi-phase competition bringing together fighters from more than forty countries. Qiddiya City is not the first move in that direction, but it stands as a major step forward. As more destinations prepare to follow, the systems established through stc’s solutions offer more than a technical advantage. They create the conditions for consistency, for growth without disruption, and for experiences that move in step with the Kingdom’s vision, setting new global standards for digital enablement, and helping turn a national transformation into everyday reality.
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