NVIDIA Corp. will ship more than 18,000 Blackwell chips, among its most advanced latest artificial intelligence (AI) processors, to Saudi Arabia to help power a new data center project with that country’s sovereign wealth fund-owned AI startup Humain.
“AI, like electricity and internet, is essential infrastructure for every nation,” NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said Tuesday, in announcing the partnership. “Together with Humain, we are building AI infrastructure for the people and companies of Saudi Arabia to realize the bold vision of the Kingdom.”
The deal, announced as part of a White House trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, comes as Saudi Arabia aggressively attempts to enhance its AI capacity and strengthen its cloud computing infrastructure through foreign investment.
Under the accord, NVIDIA’s Blackwell chips will be used in a 500-megawatt data center in Saudi Arabia. The Silicon Valley-based company said the first deployment will involve GB300 Blackwell chips that were unveiled earlier this year.
“Big win for NVIDIA and AI diffusion from the U.S. and the west,” Futurum CEO Daniel Newman said in a post on social-media platform X. “Winners go beyond just NVIDIA but the immediate is going to ease investors minds about policy. Timely and strategic partnership.”
The announcement coincides with President Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East. The president earlier signed a strategic economic agreement with Saudi Arabia, which is seeking to become less dependent on oil and establish itself as a hub for AI activity.
To that end, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday officially launched Humain, a company tasked to develop and manage AI technologies in Saudi Arabia. Humain will operate under the Public Investment Fund, and offer AI services and products that encompass data centers, AI infrastructure, sophisticated AI models and cloud computing.
“In building an AI company, you need the foundation and the infrastructure,” Humain CEO Tareq Amin said at a press conference in Riyadh on Tuesday. “It’s a really, really big initiative for the kingdom.”
The teaming of NVIDIA and Humain illustrates the importance of NVIDIA’s chips as a bargaining tool for the Trump administration as countries zealously pursue the market, which is projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2030,
“I am so delighted to be here to help celebrate the grand opening, the beginning of Humain,” NVIDIA’s Huang said. “It is an incredible vision, indeed, that Saudi Arabia should build the AI infrastructure of your nation so that you could participate and help shape the future of this incredibly transformative technology.”
Among the other tech execs who mingled with Trump and Huang were Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk, Amazon.com Inc. CEO Andy Jassy, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Alphabet President Ruth Porat, IBM Corp. CEO Arvind Krishna, Palantir Technologies Inc. CEO Alex Karp and Qualcomm Inc. CEO Cristiano Amon.
