WORLD DEFENSE SHOW 2026 — Saudi national champion Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) has announced that it is undergoing what a senior executive called a “transformation” from a company to a “strategic group,” and is launching two new entities: SAMI Land Company and SAMI Autonomous Systems.
“We are at a unique and important position in SAMI’s journey with transferring positively from a company to a strategic group and spinning off a unique, specialized company that will be laser-focused on the client need in each sector,” Wael Alsarhan, the organization’s chief communication and support services officer, told Breaking Defense on Tuesday.
SAMI Land Company will “focus with the land forces on producing their need and their requirement. And also SAMI Land Company [has] been working heavily on the SAMI land industrial complex,” he added.
Alsarhan said the new land entity is fully operational now, with a large facility on 1 million square meters of land, and is adopting the latest land tech.
Some of the first news out of SAMI Land Company was revealed here at the World Defense Show, where the company unveiled a new armored vehicle program dubbed HEET.
“HEET is announcing new indigenous capability with full Saudi IP and design that hopefully we will work with our clients to fit these vehicles to their requirements,” Alsarhan said.
On the first day of the show, the Saudi defense minister raised the curtain on the first two vehicles: HEET 8×8 and HEET 4×4, both equipped with turrets.
Regarding the timeline for development and delivery of the armored vehicles, Alsarhan said talks are ongoing.
“Today we’re very happy to announce the design and capability of the vehicle. There [are] multiple details that we are discussing with our potential client, and with our partner in the Kingdom. Once that is clear and ready, we will be announcing full timeline of the vehicles,” Alsarhan said.
A New Autonomy-Focused Entity
“Another side of the announcement as well is launching a new company … SAMI Autonomous Systems, that will focus on the autonomous system across all platforms, land, air and sea,” Alsarhan said.
Regarding the status of the autonomous systems company, Alsarhan said that SAMI didn’t “announce the management team yet, or launched fully the website or the strategic pillar of the company.”
But he said the new company won’t start “from scratch.”
“We are integrating any effort that’s been done in the autonomous system in the past under this company,” he said.
More broadly, Alsarhan explained that SAMI’s transformation will involve spinning off its divisions into individual companies, still owned by SAMI, to give them “the flexibility to produce things according to the client needs.”
SAMI previously had five divisions, focused on aerospace, land, sea, advanced electronics and defense systems, that included joint ventures with international firms with shared IP. Alsarhan did not get into the details about what the change from divisions to individual companies means for the joint ventures, but the SAMI Land Company website shows at least one joint venture currently housed under it.
SAMI has also launched RUKN, which means “cornerstone” and which the company describes as “a Local Content Program as a value-adding and strategic effort that supports SAMI’s localization efforts, addressing maturity gaps and developing locally empowered capabilities.”
“This is the cornerstone for supply chain,” Alsarhan said of the program, which he said is “fully automated and available for the suppliers” who log in and register for “opportunities.”
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