Saudi HUMAIN to create $10 billion venture fund
Saudi AI giant plans massive venture investment, tech partnerships
#SaudiArabia #funding- Saudi Arabia's new national AI company HUMAIN plans to launch a $10 billion venture capital fund this summer, according to comments made by CEO Tareq Amin to the Financial Times. HUMAIN Ventures will invest across startups in the US, Europe and Asia, while the group has picked up discussions with US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which began with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) making headlines early last year. Amin also revealed ongoing discussions with OpenAI and xAI and HUMAIN’s goal of forming joint ventures in the data centre space.
Earlier this month, HUMAIN and US AI infrastructure firm AMD announced a new groundbreaking $10 billion joint venture to create a global AI hyperscaler. The unique multi-year partnership will leverage AMD’s full spectrum computing stack, open architecture and global presence. Beginning with the rollout of 50 megawatts (MW) of computing power by Q4 2025, and scale to at least 500MW over the next five years.
SO WHAT? - Despite establishing well-funded AI initiatives across R&D, skills development, digital transformation and policy development, the Kingdom has lacked a big commercial entity to drive strategic investment in the AI space. HUMAIN was formed for this reason, however the full extent of the new group’s activities have not yet been revealed. The news of the creation of HUMAIN Ventures confirms that that new Saudi AI champion will be involved in both global investing and catalysing the Kingdom’s AI startup ecosystem.
Here are some key points about todays news and implications:
HUMAIN will soon launch HUMAIN Ventures with initial funding of $10 billion to invest in AI startups across the United States, Europe and parts of Asia, marking one of the world's largest technology-focused venture capital funds. The news was reported by the Financial Times based on comments from HUMAIN CEO Tareq Amin.
Amin also confirmed active discussions with major US technology companies including OpenAI, Elon Musk's xAI and Andreessen Horowitz about potential strategic partnerships and investment opportunities.
HUMAIN is actively seeking joint venture partners for its data centre business, which aims to become one of the world's largest AI infrastructure providers. The group has previously announced a $10 billion global data centre joint venture with US AI infrastructure leader AMD, which will scale to at least 500MW with 5 years and will include a cutting edge compute facility in the USA.
HUMAIN announced a number of key partnerships with US companies during the visit of US President Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia earlier this month. The group will build AI factories with 500 megawatts projected capacity, featuring several hundred thousand NVIDIA GPUs over five years. The first system will include 18,000 NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell systems.
Another collaboration was announced with Amazon Web Services for a $5 billion AI Zone, and with Qualcomm Technologies for next-generation data centres and cloud-to-edge services, plus semiconductor ecosystem development.
The Public Investment Fund-owned company was launched on May 12th, with plans to operate across the entire AI value chain including infrastructure, cloud services, data models and applications with headquarters in Riyadh.
HUMAIN's comprehensive approach will include developing advanced Arabic large language models and AI-native platforms designed to serve sovereign, enterprise and AI laboratory customers globally.
ZOOM OUT - HUMAIN was announced on May 12th by His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman to champion and accelerate Saudi Arabia's AI vision, building on year’s of digital transformation efforts. The new group provides the Kingdom with a single, comprehensive AI operating company focused on strategic investment and outcomes, able to move at ‘Silicon Valley speed’. Create and owned by the Public Investment Fund, is expected to play the key role in establishing Saudi Arabia as a leading regional and global AI hub for critical strategic sectors, including energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services, with a clear mandate to foster local innovation and create intellectual property.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Read more announcements about HUMAIN:
AWS, HUMAIN launch $5 billion AI Zone in Saudi Arabia (Middle East AI News)
Qualcomm and HUMAIN forge Saudi AI data centre deal (Middle East AI News)
Saudi forms AI-focused $10B joint venture with AMD (Middle East AI News)
Saudi to build 500MW AI factories with NVIDIA tech (Middle East AI News)
Saudi Arabia creates future AI powerhouse called Humain (Middle East AI News)