Amazon’s long time hit partner seems to be Humain, a Saudi Arabia backed company. They are about to invest over $5 billion to establish an innovative “AI Zone” in the crypto kingdom. Through this initiative, we hope to build up the local AI ecosystem. It serves to build technological competency and fits with Saudi Arabia’s National Development Plan 2030 aims for digital transformation.
Making that partnership work will take hundreds of billions of dollars worth of investments in new infrastructure. Amazon will supply specialized Amazon Web Services (AWS) AI resources, from servers to neural networks. The AI Zone might be the biggest indication of Amazon’s long-term commitment. This investment is in addition to their recently announced plan to build an AWS region in Saudi Arabia that’s planned for 2026 at a cost of about $5.3 billion.
The AI Zone will place an emphasis on developing robust infrastructure. It will serve as a national hub for training and certification programs to grow and sustain local talent. This effort comes at a critical moment given that Saudi Arabia has just required AI companies and services to house their data on servers in the country. This regulatory requirement has spurred the vendors to build factories in the kingdom to keep their agreements and achieve compliance goals.
The announcement came just a day after a high-level U.S.-Saudi investment forum wrapped up on Tuesday, coincidentally or not. This event convened some of our country’s most powerful tech executives, from Nvidia to AMD. The forum received national and international attention due to its headliner’s presence – former President Donald Trump. U.S.-Saudi partnerships are absolutely critical to unleashing the power of technology,” he said.
Amazon and Humain have officially created a ground-breaking new partnership. This strange convergence comes thanks to a recent move by the Trump administration to facilitate U.S. tech suppliers’ collaboration with Saudi firms. Google’s recent collaborations with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) on AI projects demonstrate the growing interest among American technology companies in Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning market. On the same note, Salesforce has worked closely with the PIF on numerous, similar, AI-related initiatives.