Amazon Web Services (AWS) and HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia’s new national artificial intelligence entity, have announced a strategic partnership to funnel over $5 billion into a pioneering “AI Zone” in the Kingdom. This significant joint investment is in addition to AWS’s existing $5.3 billion commitment for an AWS infrastructure region slated for 2026, as detailed in the official AWS and HUMAIN announcement.
The initiative aims to dramatically accelerate AI adoption and innovation, bolstering Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 ambition to become a global AI leader and supporting its 2024 pledge to build an AI-powered economy.
The AI Zone will provide dedicated AWS AI infrastructure, featuring advanced servers with cutting-edge semiconductors and UltraCluster networks to speed up AI training and inference. Businesses and government agencies will gain access to AWS’s comprehensive AI services, including Amazon SageMaker AI, Amazon Bedrock for building generative AI applications, and the AI coding assistant Amazon Q.
HUMAIN, backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will develop AI solutions using these AWS technologies and collaborate on a unified AI agent marketplace for the Saudi government. The partnership also aims to advance Large Language Models (LLMs), particularly Arabic LLMs (ALLaM).
Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, explained the collaboration will “enable innovations across all industries using AWS’s advanced AI offerings,” reflecting their commitment to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and empowering customers globally with cost-effective cloud technologies to fuel innovation.
Tareq Amin, CEO of HUMAIN, characterized the AWS partnership as a “pivotal moment” in Saudi Arabia’s AI journey, stating it will leverage world-class infrastructure and HUMAIN’s AI capabilities to attract global investment and drive the Kingdom’s digital transformation.
Saudi Arabia’s Multi-Pronged AI Infrastructure Push
The AWS-HUMAIN venture is a key component of Saudi Arabia’s broader strategy to establish itself as a major force in the global AI arena. HUMAIN, which officially launched on May 12 is simultaneously forging significant alliances with other U.S. tech giants.
Notably, HUMAIN is partnering with NVIDIA to construct “AI factories of the future.” This collaboration involves a substantial investment to deploy hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA’s most advanced GPUs over the next five years, with an initial phase featuring an 18,000 NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell AI supercomputer.
Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, emphasized that “AI, like electricity and internet, is essential infrastructure for every nation,” adding, “Together with HUMAIN, we are building AI infrastructure for the people and companies of Saudi Arabia to realize the bold vision of the Kingdom.”
Tareq Amin of HUMAIN called the NVIDIA alliance “a bold step forward in realizing the Kingdom’s ambitions to lead in AI and advanced digital infrastructure,” and a joint statement highlighted the data centers will provide “secure foundational infrastructure for training and deploying sovereign AI models at scale,” thereby accelerating innovation and digital transformation globally.
Further diversifying its technology sources, HUMAIN is also engaging U.S. chipmaker Groq for AI inference tasks. Adding another layer to this strategy, AMD and Humain announced plans to build AI infrastructure, investing up to $10 billion to deploy 500 megawatts of AI computing capacity over the next five years.
Collectively, through partnerships with AWS, Nvidia, and AMD, Humain anticipates over $15 billion in investments to deploy hundreds of megawatts of AI compute capacity. Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology, remarked on the AWS deal, thanking the company for its partnership and stating the collaboration “lays the foundation for the intelligent era,” accelerates innovation, grows talent, and reinforces the Kingdom’s global AI standing.
Cultivating Domestic AI Talent and Innovation
Beyond massive infrastructure investments, the AWS-HUMAIN partnership is designed to energize Saudi Arabia’s startup ecosystem, offering access to cloud technology tools like AWS Activate. This initiative supports the Kingdom’s growing venture capital scene. In 2024 Saudi startups attracted US$750 million, leading the MENA region.
Talent development is another critical pillar. AWS has committed to training 100,000 Saudi citizens in cloud computing and generative AI via its AWS Academy, launched in 2023. Furthermore, the “AWS Saudi Arabia Women’s Skills Initiative” was introduced in 2024 with the goal of training 10,000 women. These programs are vital as PwC forecasts AI could add $130 billion to the Saudi economy by 2030, a figure also mentioned in the AWS press release.
The broader regional context indicates nearly 70% of Middle East companies plan significant cloud migration soon. An AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, in partnership with HUMAIN, will also be established to assist organizations in developing their generative AI strategies.
Evolving US Tech Export Landscape
These significant technology acquisitions by Saudi Arabia are unfolding against the backdrop of a notable shift in U.S. export policies. The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to ease Biden-era restrictions on semiconductor exports, a move that could benefit Gulf nations by allowing direct negotiation of chip export levels.
This includes an anticipated deal to provide HUMAIN with greater access to advanced AI chips from manufacturers like Nvidia and AMD, though concerns about potential diversions to China persist.
David Sacks, White House advisor for AI and crypto, confirmed this policy direction in Riyadh on May 13, stating, “The Trump administration has just announced that we will be rescinding what’s known as the Biden diffusion rule… it literally restricted the diffusion or proliferation of American technology all over the world.”
He further clarified that diffusion “(Diffusion) is not a risk with a friend like Saudi Arabia at all but I think in general there was a great deal of misunderstanding about the diversion of GPUs,” signaling a more open stance for trusted allies.
President Donald Trump attended a U.S.-Saudi investment forum on May 13, coinciding with these announcements. A new Trump administration initiative will permit U.S. tech suppliers to arrange deals with Saudi firms.
