An AI-generated video claiming to show one of the football stadiums for the 2034 FIFA World Cup in Saudi Arabia made waves on social media this week — but it has nothing to do with the kingdom’s official plans.<\/p>\n
The video of glowing arena built atop a towering skyscraper was shared by thousands of social media accounts, with millions of users believing it was the official visual revealed by Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
While Riyadh has unveiled plans to build a football area on top of a real estate complex in The Line -\u2013 a futuristic new megacity project -\u2013 the official plans bear no resemblance to the clip that went viral in recent days.<\/p>\n
“This design is completely fake and bears no resemblance to anything Saudi Arabia is planning. It appears in no official sources,” a source close to the matter told AFP.<\/p>\n
Several French media outlets, which had referred to the viral video as a representation of the kingdom’s official project, have since deleted or updated their articles.<\/p>\n
AFP’s digital investigation team traced the video to the Instagram account “hyporaultraworks”, which regularly posts AI-generated content of futuristic stadiums.<\/p>\n
The video was described as “an aerial flyby of a skyscraper stadium design” in the caption.<\/p>\n
The account holder told AFP on Friday that they were the original creator of the viral clip.<\/p>\n
“What started as a simple AI concept has taken on a life of its own — over 50 million views later, our ‘Sky Stadium’ design has gone global (and slightly off the rails),” the user also wrote on their Facebook page.<\/p>\n
“I had no idea about any Saudi project when I made this,” they said, adding it was “purely an imaginative AI concept, exploring what a vertical, skyscraper-style football stadium could look like.”<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia is spending big on infrastructure as the desert nation prepares to host the world’s biggest football event in 2034.<\/p>\n
dec\/jc\/gk\/rh\/st<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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