Saudi Arabia, rich with oil, wants to be known as the AI exporter

By Adam Satariano & Paul Mozur

 

In northwest Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea, a planned $5 billion data centre would provide enough computing muscle for coders as far away as Europe to build artificial intelligence. On the country’s opposite coast, another planned multibillion-dollar complex could be used by artificial intelliegence (AI) developers in Asia and Africa.

 

For generations, Saudi Arabia exported oil. Now it wants to export one of the digital era’s most coveted resources: computing power.

 

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seizing a chance to turn Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth into tech influence. 

 

Already, Saudi Arabia has been negotiating with American tech giants about using its future data centres and deepening their ties. Executives from OpenAI, Google, Qualcomm, Intel and Oracle are attending the country’s annual Future Investment Initiative conference that begins Monday, nicknamed Davos in the Desert. 

 

One potential deal to provide computing power to Elon Musk’s xAI is close to being completed, said Saeed Al-Dobas, a senior executive at Humain, a new state-backed company coordinating many AI projects.

 

“Amazon was here yesterday. Microsoft we had this morning,” he said in an interview this month, adding that what was being negotiated with Musk was a “way, way bigger plan.”

 

Prince Mohammed created Humain in May and wants it to handle about 6 percent of the world’s AI workload in the coming years. That could take Saudi Arabia, which handles less than 1 percent now, from bit player to trailing only the United States and China in providing computing power, according to Synergy Research Group, which studies the data centre industry.

 

The kingdom is building three major data centre complexes aimed at foreign companies, which could be at least 30 percent cheaper for AI work than the United States, Saudi executives said. 

 

To overcome security concerns in the authoritarian state, Saudi Arabia is also considering “data embassy” zones, where foreign firms could operate under their own national laws rather than Saudi law. Amazon said it was working with Humain to “accelerate Saudi Arabia’s vision to become a global A.I. leader.” Microsoft declined to comment, and xAI did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Many are skeptical that Saudi Arabia can deliver. As an oil exporter, the kingdom has benefited from collaborating with energy-rich countries through Opec Plus, the oil-producers cartel. In AI, no such cooperation exists, and Saudi Arabia trails in a regional race against the UAE which announced a multibillion dollar project with OpenAI in Abu Dhabi this year.

 

The kingdom’s plans also test a US foreign policy that uses access to advanced AI chips to steer nations away from China. During President Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May, American firms like Nvidia were given the go-ahead to sell AI chips to Saudi Arabia. 

 

At stake is more than just Saudi Arabia’s ability to transform its economy from that of a petrol state. Prince Mohammed wants to use AI to wield the same influence that his kingdom has enjoyed from oil.

 

“It’s easy to say this is just another example of the Saudis’ throwing money at the latest shiny thing, but that could also underestimate the level of ambition,” said Vivek Chilukuri, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “They won’t get all their goals, but they may get more than many of their critics think.”

 

It was not the first time the crown prince had sought an AI strategy. In 2019, he established a government agency, the Saudi Data & AI Authority, to develop tools like an Arabic chatbot. In 2023, Aramco formed a digital unit to focus on AI and other technologies.

 

Qualcomm said it saw Saudi Arabia as “a digital bridge between continents.” Nvidia said the agreements supported US interests, while AMD said partnering with Humain drove “US leadership in the global AI race.”

 

Human rights concerns, once a deterrent for some companies, have largely faded. Saudi Arabia is betting that tech firms will not be able to resist its cheap electricity, which would make A.I. less expensive to build and deploy.

 

Saudi Arabia’s plans could be derailed by one major hurdle: US-made AI semiconductors, which power data centers but are scarce and difficult to obtain. At one point, Saudi officials questioned why they should commit to US export control rules that would limit how the chips could be used. They also proposed housing Chinese chips in areas of data center complexes different from those of US chipmakers like Nvidia, three people with knowledge of the talks said. Saudi Arabia is in limbo along with other gulf countries. The Emirates appeared on track for its allotment of AI chips after recently announcing plans to move forward with a data center with OpenAI. Last year, the Emirati company G42, which is involved in the project, agreed to pull technology from the Chinese tech company Huawei in exchange for AI chips.

 

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Commerce Department did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Humain and DataVolt said they would not allow Chinese companies to use their data centers. But ties between China and Saudi Arabia have deepened since at least 2019, when Chinese firms helped upgrade the kingdom’s telecommunications network. In February, DeepSeek agreed to use Aramco data centres.  

Saudi’s AI push 

• $5 bn data centre planned to export global computing power
• Crown Prince aims to turn oil wealth into tech influence
• Talks underway with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and xAI
• Humain targets 6% of global AI workload soon
• Data embassy zones proposed to ease foreign security concerns
• Cheap energy may attract tech giants despite human rights issues