Saudi Arabia's newly established artificial intelligence company Humain has recently announced the start of construction of its first data centers within the country. These data centers are located in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and Dammam, an eastern province, and are expected to be operational by early 2026. To meet the demand for data centers, the required semiconductor products will mainly be imported from the United States.
Image source note: The image is AI-generated, and the image licensing service provider is Midjourney
Humain is supported by the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund and was established during former US President Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia in May this year. The company's CEO Tareq Amin stated at relevant events that the initial capacity of each data center can reach 100 megawatts, and it is expected to be put into use in the second quarter of next year. To achieve this goal, Humain has started purchasing semiconductors from American chip manufacturers, including NVIDIA. The company has already received approval from local regulatory authorities to purchase 18,000 of the latest NVIDIA AI chips.
Amin said in an interview that although no specific timeline was provided, this indicates that Saudi Arabia is accelerating the import process of AI chips. He mentioned that all procurement processes depend on governance agreements and approval from the US government, and the relevant procedures will be initiated as soon as possible. Trump's visit in May paved the way for Saudi Arabia to obtain advanced semiconductor resources.
Humain aims to make the Gulf countries a regional leader in artificial intelligence by building data centers, AI infrastructure, and cloud computing capabilities. By 2030, the company plans to add an additional 1.9 gigawatts of data center capacity. In addition, Amin also revealed that Humain is establishing a joint venture with AMD, and AMD is expected to hold equity in a special fund established in Saudi Arabia. This is part of a $10 billion AI infrastructure construction agreement signed between the two companies.
Previously, Humain had also established partnerships with well-known companies such as Qualcomm and Cisco, and had preliminary discussions with xAI, an AI startup founded by Elon Musk, regarding the establishment of data centers in Saudi Arabia. These series of measures indicate that Saudi Arabia is actively promoting its development in the field of artificial intelligence and striving to occupy a place in the global market in the future.
Key Points:
🌟 Saudi AI company Humain has started the construction of its first data centers, which are planned to be operational by early 2026.
💻 The data centers will import the required semiconductors from the United States and have received regulatory approval.
🤝 Humain has established partnerships with AMD, Qualcomm, and others, aiming to build AI infrastructure.