Saudi Arabia Unveils $10 Billion VC Fund in Race for Middle East’s AI Crown

Saudi Arabia’s new state-backed AI company plans to launch a $10 billion venture capital fund and seek investments from top U.S. tech companies as it strives to become the AI leader in the Middle East.

According to a Financial Times report, Humain wants to become a major player in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, investment and chip design — areas typically dominated by long-established U.S. and Chinese tech giants.

The cornerstone of its investment strategy is the new venture fund, Humain Ventures, which will target startups across the U.S., Europe, and parts of Asia beginning this summer.

Humain, which debuted earlier this month, also plans to build out 1.9 gigawatts of data center capacity by 2030, expanding to 6.6GW by 2034 — one of the largest planned AI infrastructure builds globally. At current market rates, this would require a $77 billion investment, CEO Tareq Amin said.

Amin said Humain is seeking a U.S. equity partner for its data center business. It is in talks with OpenAI, Elon Musk’s xAI, and venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz.

“We are in discussions with all of them,” Amin told the FT. “Some of them, which you will hear about very soon, are massive names in the data center segment.”

See also: Bahrain’s AI Push in Middle East Could Serve as Model for Region, Experts Say

By 2030, Humain aims to handle 7% of the world’s AI training and inferencing workloads.

“The world is hungry for capacity,” said Amin. “There are two paths you could take: you take it slow and we are definitely not taking it slow, or you go fast. Whoever reaches the end line first, I think, is going to secure a good chunk of the market share.”

Humain’s strategy has already yielded $23 billion worth of deals with U.S. tech firms, including Nvidia, AMD, Amazon Web Services and Qualcomm, according to Amin.

Bloomberg reported earlier that Humain and Amazon are investing upwards of $5 billion on an AI zone in Saudi Arabia. It will use tech from Amazon Web Services to develop a marketplace of AI agents for use by the Saudi government.

Read more: Nvidia and Amazon Land Middle Eastern AI Deals Amid Trump Visit

The Crown Prince’s Ambitions

Humain is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has made AI a centerpiece of his plan to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from oil.

Like neighboring UAE, Saudi Arabia has focused on working closely with U.S. tech companies in an effort to reassure Washington amid concerns over China’s growing influence.

“The importance of the U.S. ecosystem is very critical,” Amin said. “If you go and look at our suppliers, you’ll discover that we were deliberate on the partnerships and the choices that we have picked … we did not want to make mistakes.”

Initial plans include a 50MW data center using 18,000 Nvidia GPUs, with expansion to 500MW requiring approximately 180,000 chips.

This places Humain’s ambitions in the same league as Musk’s xAI, whose Colossus cluster uses 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, and the “Stargate” data center being built by OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle, which will feature 400,000 Nvidia GB200 chips.

Read more: This Week in AI: Trump Repeals Biden AI Rules but Launches Stargate

Humain has also partnered with AMD on a $10 billion joint venture to provide 500MW of capacity over five years. It is investing $2 billion with Qualcomm to co-develop chip design and data center capabilities. Under the deal, Qualcomm will establish a chip design center in Riyadh employing 500 engineers, although Humain has no plans to enter chip manufacturing.

Within 30 days, Humain will begin the procurement process for chips from U.S. companies. Amin said he is hopeful that the sales will be supported by the Trump administration, which recently moved to reverse Biden-era restrictions on advanced chip exports to Saudi Arabia.

To attract more data centers, Saudi Arabia is offering subsidized electricity — already among the cheapest in the world.

Also read: Mastercard Expands Partnerships With Emirates NBD and Checkout.com

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.