Neo Space Group at LEAP: Utilising AI from Space with Mark Dickinson, CTO
LEAP 2025 showcased Saudi Arabia’s commitment to financial technology and digital transformation, playing host to experts and organisations sharing their latest accomplishments and innovative ideas. One conversation that stood out to us was with Mark Dickinson, chief technology officer, Neo Space Group (NSG).
While at LEAP 2025, Mark Walker spoke to Dickinson to learn more about his career and the enormous potential of AI and space communications networks in improving the agricultural sector.
Having previously worked as a satellite operator for 25 years at Inmarsat, and then Viasat, Dickinson was extremely keen on Neo Space Group’s ambitions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. “Space has been identified as a key pillar for the Vision 2030, and I’ve been very impressed by what NSG has done to grow the Saudi economy in line with this.”
Exciting technologies
Discussing what new technologies are impacting the space sector the most, Dickinson noted NSG’s key technology pillars, including:
Communications: software-defined spacecraft, and directed device services which are enabling connectivity from unmodified smartphones.
Earth observations: using AI to fuse data together and create a marketplace for customers to request data, and provide an easy, transparent way of facilitating its delivery
Navigation and timing: enabling smart agriculture, improved transportation with precision, “centimetre level accuracy”.
“At NSG we merge these individual sectors together to create solutions for customers when they’re not available anywhere else. It’s great that we have the ability to draw out a technical roadmap for delivery now.”
Time for smart agriculture
The impact of space technology on the agricultural sector cannot be overstated. Now, there is a network of sensors deployed in space which can measure things like soil moisture over hectares and hectares of space, which can then be relayed back to satellites.
Dickinson explained that through technology, yields of crops can be observed, and using a communication network, information can be passed back very quickly and easily. Additionally, it offers a navigation system which allows for autonomous vehicles to perform agricultural tasks.
“This is a good example of fusing different technology sectors to create a new solution. You get information about what’s actually happening in the field, measurements coming back in real-time and larger-scale Earth observation data – then using AI, you fuse all that data together to tell you what you should do from a farming perspective. Once this has been done, you have the automated vehicles to come in and execute what the data shows, all while having a communication network to manage it all.”
Reflecting on how technology has evolved from the internet of things, Dickinson added: “Having data is nice, but by itself, it doesn’t deliver a huge amount of value. Being able to have systems that process the data and provide meaningful results to customers is fundamental.”
Overcoming challenges
In smart cities, access to power means that it is much simpler to charge these sensors and networks that require energy. However, due to the vast amounts of land lacking access to energy in certain areas of the agricultural sector, this can be challenging.
Dickinson said: “You need a communication network to allow all the acquired data to come back. You need sensors to be deployed, which are very low power, to make sure that they can work for weeks, months or even years, without being able to have any maintenance on them.
“You also need AI-powered analysis to make sense of it and join the dots to be able to provide that really meaningful product and outcome.”
Challenges can also be seen from a navigation and timing point of view. Addressing these, Dickinson added that you need to make sure the technology you’re using is accurate enough for your needs. He explained that metre accuracy isn’t enough, centimetre accuracy is needed. Making comparisons to automated driving and flying he noted: “You need to know where you are on the road with a higher degree of accuracy than a metre, otherwise you’re going to be over in the next lane.”
Acquiring UP42
Geospatial functionalities are incredibly important to NSG and as such, the firm was looking to bolster its expertise in the field. It identified UP42 as an organisation that could help it achieve its goals, as Dickinson commented: “With the acquisition of UP42, we’re bringing a marketplace for observation data.
“We want it to be able to use data from different capabilities, different spacecraft, different types of sensors and fuse it to provide a marketplace to allow customers to identify the data they need at a certain time, in a certain region, and have a transparent interface to access this data.
“We want it to make use of all sensors, whether they’re third-party sensors, Saudi national sensors, or sensors purchased by NSG. Having the approach to merge sovereign capabilities with international capabilities is fundamental to what we want to do.”
Dickinson noted how this also couples with the firm’s long-term vision. “We also have the vision to create a venture capital fund to be able to see new technology that we think is going to be very important in the future.
“We want the ability to get in at the very early stages because we know there’s going to be new capabilities and new technologies that can really empower what we want to do today. Having the sort of communication networks, the observation and then the venture capital fund is essentially a seed way to bring technology to empower those sectors – this is a really important aspect of what NSG is doing.”
Looking to the future
Discussing the state of quantum and how technology has evolved since the arrival of 5G, Dickinson explored what he was most excited about in the future: “one of the areas of significant interest in the communication side is something called direct-to-device on non-terrestrial networks.
“This takes 5G terrestrial standards and expands them. Rather than the base station being talked to two kilometres away, it could be one in orbit. This opens up a whole ecosystem of end devices, and chipsets, which weren’t available for space in the past.”
Thoughts on LEAP 2025
Rounding out the conversation, Walker and Dickinson discussed the event at Rihyad, with the latter reflecting on the impressive discussions surrounding AI.
“There’s a lot of talk around AI and how AI is actually going to be used in a practical sense to improve people’s lives and business returns. Talking is the easy part – actually delivering real capability is slightly harder. But that’s what makes it so interesting! It gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we’re doing well and how our services can be improved to offer a greater service to our customers.”
