Saudi Arabia Unveils Bold Plan to Become Global AI Powerhouse

Saudi Arabia is making an aggressive push to establish itself as one of the world’s leading players in artificial intelligence, channeling its vast oil wealth into the fast-growing tech sector through a new national AI company called Humain.

Backed by the Kingdom’s nearly $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, Humain is developing a full AI ecosystem – from data centers and cloud infrastructure to large language models and next-generation applications. The company was first introduced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in May and took center stage again this week at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, where its scale and ambition were fully revealed.

Humain’s CEO, Tareq Amin, outlined a bold vision to make Saudi Arabia the world’s third-largest AI market, behind only the United States and China. He emphasized that the country’s strength lies in its energy capacity, which can power large-scale computing at a lower cost and with faster deployment timelines.

“We have an advantage in Saudi Arabia,” Amin told CNN. “Our energy infrastructure allows us to power massive data centers without having to build from scratch – saving us up to 18 months in setup time.”

Under its roadmap, Humain plans to generate up to six gigawatts of data center capacity across Saudi Arabia by 2034, partnering with global technology leaders such as Nvidia, AMD, Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, and Cisco. The company also announced a $3 billion partnership with Blackstone to build new data centers across the Kingdom.

In addition, Humain launched Humain One, an AI-powered operating system that lets users interact through voice or text commands instead of traditional icons and menus. The system has already been deployed internally, automating large parts of the company’s HR, finance, and operations – with AI agents now performing tasks once handled by teams of employees.

The initiative comes at a critical moment for Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 diversification plan, as the country faces lower oil revenues and delays in several mega-projects, including the futuristic city Neom. The AI sector is now seen as a crucial pillar for driving future economic growth.

However, the Kingdom faces growing regional competition from the United Arab Emirates, whose AI company G42 recently announced a $500 billion “Stargate UAE” data center project in collaboration with OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, and Cisco.

Despite this rivalry, Amin expressed optimism about the region’s shared technological future. “It’s good for humanity to see AI knowledge spread globally,” he said. “The UAE is doing great things, and so are we. But Humain is not just an investor – we are an operator building the infrastructure for Saudi Arabia’s AI future.”