A Houthi attack on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport killed at least 13 people and injured more than 300. Twelve days later, Saudi Arabia announced an expanded artificial intelligence computing agreement with Nvidia, covering 84 megawatts of capacity and about 27,000 graphics processing units as the kingdom pursues its goal of becoming a global AI hub.
Nvidia announced the deal at its GTC conference in Berlin on Thursday, October 22, 2026. The agreement includes infrastructure for an unidentified US client. It also comes days after Saudi Arabia postponed its flagship Future Investment Initiative conference, scheduled for October 26-29, to next year.
The Computing Plan
The first phase will deploy 14MW of Nvidia Blackwell HGX B300 systems, equivalent to about 6,000 GPUs. Deployment is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026. The infrastructure will support Humain Cloud customers, including AI companies, government entities and businesses.
Saudi Arabia plans a further 70MW of Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin infrastructure from mid-2027. That phase represents about 21,000 GPUs. Of the planned capacity, 50MW will serve advanced AI workloads for an 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 the Vera Rubin projects still require final agreements and deployment plans. Nvidia describes Blackwell as its current generation of AI chips and Vera Rubin as its successor, designed to handle more complex workloads faster and more efficiently. GPUs are processors used to train and run AI systems.
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.”
A Regional Technology Race
The expanded 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.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman chairs Humain, which launched in May 2025 and is owned by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund. The company plans to develop about 3GW of data centre capacity by 2030 and more than 6GW by 2034.
Saudi Arabia is competing with the UAE to attract AI investment. 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. Nvidia is also a technology partner in that project.
Both Gulf countries depend on US export approvals to obtain advanced AI chips, making Washington’s technology restrictions a key factor in their expansion plans. Saudi Arabia’s announcement pairs a large computing buildout with reliance on approvals from the United States.
The Airport Attack and Conference Delay
The Future Investment Initiative gathering had become a major platform for announcing investment agreements involving Saudi Arabia’s technology and infrastructure sectors. Amin was among the speakers scheduled to attend. The FII Institute says the annual conference has helped secure $250 billion in signed agreements and investment pledges since its inception.
The conference postponement followed the October 10 Houthi attack on Riyadh’s airport. The attack killed at least 13 people and injured more than 300. The AI agreement came as Saudi Arabia continued its technology expansion, with the attack and conference delay forming the immediate security and investment backdrop.
The conference had been scheduled for October 26-29, and Saudi Arabia postponed it to next year.
- humain
- nvidia
- artificial intelligence
- saudi arabia
- ai computing
- blackwell
- vera rubin
- data centers