KSA
Saudi Arabia’s AI push takes shape with the launch of Humain
Backed by the Kingdom’s $940bn Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia has launched a new AI company called Humain, marking a major milestone in its Vision 2030 economic diversification strategy. Positioned to be Riyadh’s flagship vehicle for driving the Kingdom’s AI ambitions, Humain represents Saudi Arabia’s major next step into the global AI race – its answer to Silicon Valley’s dominance. The company aims to shape the international AI conversation while ensuring the Kingdom and the broader GCC have a permanent seat at the table. With a mission to build local capabilities, reduce reliance on imported technologies, and foster innovation across sectors like healthcare, education, logistics, and defence, Humain plans to develop a suite of AI technologies, including large-scale data centres. This move is part of a broader national push: the Kingdom is laying down infrastructure, channelling capital, and crafting regulatory frameworks to nurture a globally competitive AI sector. PIF, Humain’s backer, has already made significant inroads, notably through the launch of Alat, which has committed $100bn by 2030 to AI hardware and tech infrastructure. In parallel, US chipmaker Groq recently partnered with Aramco Digital to build the world’s largest inference data centre in Saudi Arabia. Despite recent reductions in overseas spending, AI remains a strategic priority, with Sheikh Mohammed affirming in January that the Kingdom will invest $600bn in the US over the next four years…Read more
AWS and Humain announce a $5bn+ partnership to accelerate AI adoption in the Kingdom and globally
AWS and Humain, Saudi Arabia’s recently launched AI company, have announced plans to invest over $5 billion to build a first-of-its-kind AI Zone in the Kingdom. This initiative will bring AWS’s advanced server and network infrastructure – as well as its suite of AI and machine learning services, including Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Bedrock, and Amazon Q – to Saudi Arabia. As part of the strategic partnership, Humain will leverage AWS technologies to develop AI solutions for its end customers and collaborate on the creation of a unified AI agent marketplace. This announcement follows the recent unveiling of a new AWS cloud region in the Kingdom, representing an additional investment of $5.3 billion.…Read more
Saudi Arabia sees a flurry of deals during President Trump’s visit
This week, US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia, and, along with the major announcement of the launch of Humain, a flurry of other investment deals was announced, predominantly in AI and data centre infrastructure and investment:
- Oracle pledges $14bn in investment over the next 10 years in Saudi, aiming to bring AI technology to the Kingdom and create new opportunities for the economy.
- Nvidia announces a partnership with Humain, which includes a shipment of 18,000 chips to the Kingdom, to help power a new data centre project. In another deal with the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), Nvidia will deploy up to 5,000 Blackwell GPUs for a sovereign AI factory and enable smart city solutions. Additionally, Nvidia and SDAIA will train government and university students on how to develop and deploy models for physical and agentic AI.
- AMD announces its $10bn investment collaboration with Humain, over the next 5 years, to deploy 500MW of AI compute capacity. Humain will oversee end-to-end delivery, including hyperscale data centres, sustainable power systems, and global fibre interconnects (AMD will provide its software).
- Qualcomm Technologies Inc. partners with Human for the development of next-gen AI data centres and infrastructure and cloud-to-edge services across Saudi.