Ex-CEO of Rakuten Symphony Tareq Amin (pictured), who abruptly left his role at the Japanese company two months ago, tweeted over the weekend he will work on a project in Saudi Arabia, without providing further detail.

Amin stated: “Delighted to announce my next mission: contributing to the incredible push for a digital revolution in Saudi Arabia! I’m thrilled to lend my expertise and passion to help shape a cutting-edge digital society.”

Possible projects include the country’s Vision 2030, a government programme with the goal of increasing economic and cultural diversification, and Line, an ambitious linear smart city under construction in Neom running 170km long and 200m wide, designed to have no cars, streets or carbon emissions.

Amin, who gave up his role as CTO of Rakuten Mobile in March 2022 to focus on the software platform, departed in early August 2023,  with chairman Mickey Mikitani replacing him as CEO of Rakuten Symphony.

The open RAN pioneer led Rakuten Mobile to be the first mobile operator to build an end-to-end virtualised telecom infrastructure.