Saudi Arabia to Become AI Powerhouse, Building $1 Trillion Data Center

Saudi Arabia is channeling its vast oil revenues into advancing its sweeping artificial intelligence goals, with its primary push led by Humain, a domestic tech firm developing a comprehensive AI ecosystem.

From data centers and cloud infrastructure to large language models and applications, the company is backed by the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, which oversees nearly $1 trillion in assets.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman introduced Humain in May, shortly before US President Donald Trump visited Riyadh. During this week’s Future Investment Initiative in the capital, Saudi officials provided further details, underscoring the vast scope, bold vision, and substantial funding behind the initiative.

Humain CEO Tareq Amin has set his sights on making Saudi Arabia the world’s No. 3 AI powerhouse, following the US and China.

It is an ambitious goal for a newcomer, but Amin says the kingdom’s key advantage is its plentiful, low-cost energy supply, a resource he believes can fuel the massive computing power AI demands.

“We have an advantage in Saudi Arabia,” he told CNN, adding that “Look at this country’s amazing energy grid that doesn’t require a company like Humain to build the substations and the power to deliver that to a data center. That means I have saved 18 months of time.”

Humain aims to develop as much as six gigawatts of data center capacity nationwide by 2034, working alongside major AI players such as Nvidia, AMD, Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, and Cisco.

On Tuesday, the company unveiled a $3 billion agreement with private equity firm Blackstone to construct data centers in Saudi Arabia.

The company also debuted Humain One, an AI-driven operating system that lets users interact by voice or text instead of traditional icon-based commands. Humain has already been using the system in-house across HR, finance, legal, and operations, with Amin noting that its payroll team now has just one employee as AI agents handle the remaining work.

Saudi Arabia’s AI drive comes as the UAE expands its own efforts through G42, which recently announced the $500 billion “Stargate UAE” data center project with US tech partners.

Asked if the region can host two major AI hubs, Amin said he backs wider AI access and pointed to Humain’s model, saying: “It is good for humanity to have knowledge, especially around AI, not to have it all centralized in one location… I will tell you what we decided to do, which is very different … Humain is not a holding company. We are an operating company.”