Saudi AI Push Puts Crown Prince's Fund at the Core

Saudi Arabia’s Humain has expanded its Nvidia partnership to build 84 megawatts of artificial intelligence computing capacity. The infrastructure will serve government entities, businesses, AI companies and an unidentified US client. Humain, owned by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund and chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, puts a state-owned investment vehicle at the center of the kingdom’s push to become a global AI hub.

Nvidia announced the plan at its GTC conference in Berlin on Thursday, October 22. It covers about 27,000 graphics processing units across two phases. GPUs are processors used to train and run AI systems. The first phase comprises 14MW of Nvidia Blackwell HGX B300 systems, equivalent to about 6,000 GPUs, and deployment will begin in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Computing for governments and business

Humain Cloud will serve AI companies, government entities and businesses with infrastructure from the first phase. That puts capacity in the hands of a platform owned by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, while the announcement also lists public-sector bodies as intended users. The article doesn’t identify the US client set to receive a separate share of the planned computing capacity.

Humain plans a further 70MW of Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin infrastructure, representing about 21,000 GPUs, from mid-2027. Of that capacity, 50MW will support advanced AI workloads for the unidentified US client, with deployment targeted to begin in June. The remaining 20MW will support Humain Cloud, with deployment expected to begin in July or August. The companies said final agreements and deployment plans still need to be completed for the Vera Rubin projects.

Humain chief executive Tareq Amin said: “We are moving quickly to bring the next generations of Nvidia-accelerated computing into Saudi Arabia at meaningful scale.” Blackwell is Nvidia’s current generation of AI chips; Vera Rubin is its successor, designed to handle more complex workloads faster and more efficiently.

State-backed expansion, US gatekeeping

The latest agreement builds on a partnership announced in May 2025, during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh. Nvidia then unveiled plans to supply Humain with hundreds of thousands of advanced AI chips over five years. The initial phase involved 18,000 Blackwell processors, within a broader plan to develop up to 500MW of AI computing capacity over five years.

Humain launched in May 2025. It plans about 3GW of data centre capacity by 2030 and more than 6GW by 2034. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE depend on US export approvals to obtain advanced AI chips, so Washington’s technology restrictions affect their expansion plans.

The UAE is also building a major computing project. In Abu Dhabi, G42, OpenAI and Oracle are developing Stargate UAE, a 1-gigawatt computing cluster that forms the first phase of a planned 5GW UAE-US AI campus, with Nvidia also a technology partner. The two Gulf states are competing for AI investment, and both projects rely on access to US technology.

Saudi Arabia postponed its flagship Future Investment Initiative conference days after the announcement. The gathering, scheduled for October 26-29, will now take place next year. The postponement followed a Houthi attack on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on October 10 that killed at least 13 people and injured more than 300. Amin had been scheduled to speak at the conference, which the FII Institute says has helped secure $250 billion in signed agreements and investment pledges since its inception. The conference’s investment platform is paused, but the computing expansion remains on the table.