Saudi Arabia Aims to Become a Global Leader in Artificial Intelligence

Saudi Arabia is striving to invest its vast oil wealth to realize its grand ambitions in the field of artificial intelligence.

The local company 'Humain' has rapidly been established as a key investment tool, building a comprehensive array of data centers, cloud capabilities, and large language models and applications. The company is owned by the Kingdom's Public Investment Fund, which is valued at approximately $1 trillion.

In May, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman unveiled the 'Humain' project ahead of President Donald Trump's state visit to Riyadh.

During the annual Future Investment Forum in the capital Riyadh, media attention was focused on this project and the massive investments involved.

In an interview with CNN, Tarik Amin, CEO of 'Humain', stated that they have ambitious plans to make Saudi Arabia the largest AI market in the world, after the US and China. Amin noted that the Kingdom's competitive advantage lies in its abundant and inexpensive energy resources, which will power the demands of this industry requiring super-fast computing power.

Humain plans to build up to six gigawatts of data center capacity across the country by 2034, with a range of key AI partners, including Nvidia, AMD, Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, and Cisco.

On Tuesday, Humain announced a $3 billion deal with private equity giant Blackstone to build data centers in the Kingdom.