Saudi Arabia’s newly established AI-focused company, Humain, is launching a $10 billion venture capital fund as part of an ambitious push to dominate artificial intelligence development in the Middle East.
As reported by the Financial Times, Humain aims to position itself as a powerhouse in AI infrastructure, chip innovation, and global investment — sectors long led by tech titans in the U.S. and China.
Central to this strategy is Humain Ventures, a new fund expected to begin investing in AI startups across the United States, Europe, and select parts of Asia starting this summer.
Unveiled earlier this month, Humain has also laid out plans to develop 1.9 gigawatts of data center capacity by 2030, expanding that to 6.6 gigawatts by 2034 making it one of the largest AI infrastructure initiatives globally. CEO Tareq Amin estimates the cost of this expansion could reach $77 billion at current market rates.
The company is also in search of a U.S.-based equity partner for its data center operations and is reportedly in active discussions with OpenAI, xAI, and Andreessen Horowitz, among others.
“We’re talking to all of them,” Amin confirmed to FT, adding that some major announcements from top-tier data center firms will follow soon.
By the end of the decade, Humain envisions itself managing around 7% of global AI training and inference workloads.
“There’s an urgent global demand for capacity,” said Amin. “You can take a cautious approach, but we’re choosing to go full speed. Whoever gets there first will capture significant market share.”
So far, Humain has secured $23 billion in agreements with leading U.S. tech firms, including Nvidia, AMD, Amazon Web Services, and Qualcomm, according to Amin.
Bloomberg previously reported on a $5 billion joint investment between Humain and Amazon to develop a dedicated AI zone in Saudi Arabia, powered by AWS. The project includes a platform for AI agents tailored to government applications.
Royal Backing and Strategic Alignment
Humain is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has made AI a cornerstone of his broader agenda to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy beyond its oil sector.
Like the UAE, Saudi Arabia is strategically partnering with U.S. tech leaders to strengthen ties with Washington and ease concerns over China’s rising technological footprint.
“We’ve been very deliberate with who we work with,” said Amin. “A strong relationship with the U.S. tech ecosystem is essential, it’s reflected in the partners we’ve chosen.”
Initial infrastructure development includes a 50MW data center powered by 18,000 Nvidia GPUs, with plans to expand to 500MW using approximately 180,000 GPUs. This puts Humain’s scale on par with xAI’s Colossus, which uses 100,000 GPUs, and the Stargate project by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, projected to host 400,000 Nvidia GB200 chips.
