Saudi Arabia has taken a bold step toward establishing itself as a global AI leader with the launch of HUMAIN, a comprehensive artificial intelligence company owned by the kingdom's $940 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, HUMAIN was unveiled on May 12, 2025, just ahead of US President Donald Trump's visit to Riyadh. The timing underscores the strategic importance of this initiative, which aligns with the broader Saudi-US investment forum where multiple tech leaders, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg, were in attendance.
HUMAIN will operate across the entire AI value chain, providing a comprehensive range of services including next-generation data centers, AI infrastructure, cloud capabilities, and advanced AI models. A centerpiece of the company's mission is the development of one of the world's most powerful multimodal Arabic large language models (LLMs), addressing a significant gap in Arabic-language AI capabilities.
"It's a really, really big initiative for the kingdom," said HUMAIN CEO Tareq Amin during the Saudi-US Investment Forum on May 13. The company's ambitions received an immediate boost with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announcing the sale of more than 18,000 of Nvidia's latest AI chips to HUMAIN, significantly enhancing Saudi Arabia's AI computing capacity.
This launch represents a critical component of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 economic diversification strategy, which aims to reduce the kingdom's dependence on oil revenues. The Global AI Index published in 2024 ranked Saudi Arabia as the world leader in terms of government AI strategy, reflecting the kingdom's commitment to this sector.
HUMAIN will also streamline various data center initiatives, accelerate hardware procurement, and drive AI adoption across industries. With substantial investments in AI infrastructure and strategic international partnerships, Saudi Arabia is positioning itself to become a globally competitive hub in the AI and digital economy, leveraging its strategic location at the nexus of three continents and its young, tech-savvy population.