Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is backing a state-backed AI company called HUMAIN, led by CEO Tareq Amin, which aims to become one of the world's largest compute hubs. The plan involves using Saudi Arabia's cheap energy and vast land to attract hyperscalers such as cloud computing companies to build data centers there. Amin has already secured a $3 billion investment from Blackstone, with plans for an additional large venture capital fund and expansion into US, France, and UK offices. HUMAIN aims to reduce its reliance on Saudi's sovereign wealth fund by attracting external financing, positioning itself as a neutral "Switzerland" for AI development that sidesteps the rivalry between the US and China.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-07,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
The Scene
HUMAIN CEO Tareq Amin recognizes Saudi Arabia’s latest effort to transform its economy for what it is: an audacious bet that it can join the US and China as a global AI superpower.
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it → recognize → superpower
Ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Kingdom last year, the Jordanian-American tech executive helped launch the state-backed AI company under Saudi’s Public Investment Fund.
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executive → help → Fund
The plan was to use the Kingdom’s cheap energy, vast land, and sovereign billions to become one of the world’s largest compute hubs.
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plan → use → hubs
Amin, who previously led Saudi Aramco’s tech arm, clocked an early win with a well-timed $3 billion investment into Elon Musk’s xAI before it was folded into SpaceX ahead of its historic IPO.
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it → lead → IPO
Now, HUMAIN has plans to launch a large venture capital fund and expand significantly with offices in the US, France, and the UK, in order to “accelerate the pace of investment,” Amin said in an interview.
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Amin → have → interview
It also wants to reduce its reliance on the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, its largest shareholder, open up to more global investors, and position itself as a sort of “Switzerland” for open models that sidesteps the dueling ambitions of the US and China.
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that → want → US
Here’s how Amin is thinking about what’s next for HUMAIN:
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what → ’ → HUMAIN
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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interview → edit → clarity
How much external financing have you raised so far?
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you → raise → financing
We’re not there yet, but I’m getting close to it,.
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I → ’re → it
I would love nothing else but to open HUMAIN to the rest of the world and say this is a great place to invest, a great company to invest in.
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this → love → world
The story that we talked about a year ago was a PowerPoint, it was a vision.
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it → talk → that
Today it’s no longer a vision, nor a PowerPoint.
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it → ’ → ?
People can see it with their own eyes and understand the value proposition of what we offer.
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we → see → what
When you offer predictable energy tariff rates, an abundance of land, low-cost energy, and a [total cost of ownership] that is one of the lowest in the world, it becomes a no-brainer to start looking seriously at investing here.
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it → offer → investing
I can’t tell you the exact number, but you could assume today an average build of $11 to $12 million per megawatt is what the industry builds on for [data centers].
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industry → tell → centers
What we’ve declared is a build towards 3 gigawatts, and you could really stipulate how much capital we need.
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we → declare → capital
On one hand, we do build-to-suit for hyperscalers and they purchase the GPUs.
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they → do → GPUs
On the other hand, I’m really accelerating our AI inferencing, which is endpoint APIs to sell frontier models in our marketplace.
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which → accelerate → marketplace
But for third-party financing, I am extremely pleasantly surprised that we have large companies such as Blackstone that have committed to put $3 billion, and many others that will be coming in to accelerate our debt and equity raise for the company.
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that → have → company
The US has temporarily cut people off from access to some of the models, which has made everybody think very seriously about the idea of sovereign AI.
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everybody → cut → AI
What does that mean for HUMAIN and how are you thinking about it?
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you → mean → it
It’s not trivial to build frontier models.
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It → ’ → models
You may take an approach and say, ‘Look, we’re going to try to create from scratch an Arabic large language model.’
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we → take → model
I think it did relatively well; it taught my team how the transformer model architecture works.
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architecture → think → team
But when we created Allam [an Arabic-first large language model], we used about 4,000 GPUs.
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we → create → GPUs
Compare that to OpenAI that has hundreds of thousands of GPUs.
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that → compare → GPUs
Practically speaking, there are two big constraints to building a frontier model: You need scientists and researchers that have the depth and know-how, and you need large compute.
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you → speak → compute
We did a strategic partnership with a leading company in the US called Reflection AI.
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We → do → US
That relationship does two things: it continues to educate my own team on how we tune, optimize, and improve Allam to be a frontier model, and they provide us the sovereignty that we need and require to do this.
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we → do → this
In addition, we made a big announcement with Mistral.
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we → make → Mistral
We basically want to be a marketplace — think of it as a Switzerland for open models.
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We → want → models
Open models are becoming fascinating; their performance is absolutely reaching frontier levels.
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performance → become → levels
With this open-weight architecture, I feel confident that we have an answer regardless of whatever geopolitical scenario comes our way.
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scenario → feel → answer
I don’t think anybody in [the Middle East] yet could say they have built a state-of-the-art frontier model.
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they → think → model
Europe is trying, and I think eventually we will catch up, but
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we → try → ?
we need a bit of time.
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we → need → time
So short term, my open-weight models are the strategy to guarantee sovereignty.
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models → guarantee → sovereignty
Going back to what you were saying about how fast you’re moving and the demand for compute capacity, how is that making you think about your data center targets?
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you → go → targets
My entire capacity is sold before it’s deployed.
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it → sell → ?
…and 12 more, not listed.
