From Oil to Innovation: Saudi Arabia’s “Humain” Revolution in Artificial Intelligence

Nov 09, 2025
Technology

Photo: Guests visit the booth of Saudi Arabia’s artificial intelligence company Humain. (Collected | Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images)

Staff Reporter | PNN:

Saudi Arabia has taken a major step toward transforming its oil wealth into technological power by launching a massive artificial intelligence (AI) initiative. The kingdom’s leading investment company, Humain, is developing a complete AI ecosystem—including data centers, cloud infrastructure, large language models, and various AI applications. The company is backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, valued at nearly $1 trillion.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman inaugurated the project in May, during former U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit to Riyadh. At this week’s Future Investment Initiative in Bangkok, Humain showcased its scale, ambition, and financial strength.

CEO Tareq Amin stated that the goal is to make Saudi Arabia the world’s third-largest AI market, after the United States and China. He added that the country’s vast, inexpensive electricity supply gives it a significant advantage:

“Saudi Arabia’s power grid is so advanced that we didn’t need separate power plants—saving us nearly 28 months of construction time.”

According to Humain’s roadmap, by 2034 the country will have data centers with a total capacity of six gigawatts. Major global tech players—including NVIDIA, AMD, Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, and Cisco—are strategic partners in this project.

Humain has also signed a $3 billion deal with private equity firm Blackstone and launched its own AI-driven operating system, Humain One, which allows users to perform tasks through written or spoken commands without clicking on anything.

The company already uses AI to manage its HR, finance, legal, operations, and IT departments. Amin noted that only one human employee currently works in payroll—everything else is run by AI agents.

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 economic transformation plan is now entering its final phase, and with falling oil prices and delays in mega-projects like Neom, the importance of AI has grown dramatically. Neighboring UAE is also developing a $500 billion AI data center project called Stargate UAE under its G42 initiative.

Amin commented: “It’s better to democratize AI knowledge rather than centralize it. What’s happening in the UAE is good, and what’s happening in Saudi Arabia is good too. We at Humain are not a holding company—we’re an operational one.”

Analysts view Saudi Arabia’s AI initiative not just as a boost to its economy, but as a crucial step toward making the Arab world’s largest economy a technological powerhouse.