By Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis
(Reuters) -A number of U.S. technology firms on Tuesday announced artificial intelligence deals in the Middle East as U.S. President Donald Trump secured $600 billion in commitments from Saudi Arabia to U.S. companies during a tour of Gulf states.
Among the biggest deals, Nvidia said it will sell hundreds of thousands of AI chips in Saudi Arabia, with a first tranche of 18,000 of its newest “Blackwell” chips going to Humain, an AI startup just launched by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Chip designer Advanced Micro Devices also announced a deal with Humain, saying it has formed a $10 billion collaboration.
Another company to announce a deal with Humain, was Qualcomm Inc, which said it signed a memo of understanding to develop and build a data centre central processor (CPU). The San Diego-based chip designer bought server CPU maker Nuvia in 2021 but has not yet released a product.
Trump began his Gulf tour on Tuesday, kicking it off with the signing of a strategic economic agreement with Saudi Arabia as the oil power rolled out the red carpet. Trump’s Middle East visit aims to drum up trillions of dollars in investments.
The deals will flow both ways.
The White House said Saudi Arabian firm DataVolt will invest $20 billion in AI data centres and energy infrastructure in the United States. Alphabet’s Google, DataVolt, Oracle Corp, Salesforce Inc, Advanced Micro Devices and Uber will invest $80 billion in cutting-edge transformative technologies in both countries, the White House said, without giving details.
Trump plans to visit the UAE on Thursday. The New York Times on Monday reported that the Trump administration is nearing a deal to allow UAE to buy large volumes of Nvidia’s AI chips.
Saudi Arabia, which is seeking to make its economy less dependent on oil revenue, aims to position itself as a hub for AI and a leading centre for AI activity outside the United States.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday launched Humain to develop and manage AI technologies in Saudi Arabia.
AI CHIP DEALS
Nvidia and Humain said they will leverage Nvidia’s platforms to establish Saudi Arabia as a global leader in AI, GPU cloud computing and digital transformation.
In a joint statement, the two companies said they will build AI factories with up to 500 megawatts of capacity that will include “several hundred thousand” of Nvidia’s most advanced GPUs over five years.
In Humain’s deal with AMD, the agreement includes a plan to invest up to $10 billion to deploy 500 megawatts of AI hardware infrastructure over five years.
The Humain-AMD deal, in addition to hardware purchases, involves a collaboration that aims to help Humain implement a next-generation AI cloud computing platform, according to Keith Strier, AMD senior vice president of global AI markets.
“Together, we are building a globally significant AI platform that delivers performance, openness and reach at unprecedented levels,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said in a statement.
With some capacity set to come online in 2026, Humain will oversee the delivery of the data-crunching power to potential customers, while AMD will provide CPUs, GPUs and its software that helps orchestrate the data crunching.
Part of the rationale for closing a deal with AMD is to ensure Humain isn’t locked into using a single vendor for AI-related hardware, Strier said.
“And now, in addition to building infrastructure, countries recognize they need to do it in a very resilient way, in these diverse ways,” Strier said.
Chaired by bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Humain will operate under the Public Investment Fund and will offer AI services and products, including data centres, AI infrastructure, cloud capabilities and advanced AI models.
“In building an AI company, you need the foundation and the infrastructure,” Humain CEO Tareq Amin said on stage from Riyadh on Tuesday. “It’s a really, really big initiative for the kingdom.”
(Reporting by Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Federico Maccioni in Riyadh; Writing by Manya Saini; Editing by Barbara Lewis, Mark Potter, Rod Nickel, Alistair Bell and Leslie Adler)
