In less than a decade… Saudi Arabia’s journey towards AI leadership

By: Mamdoh Almalki

The Kingdom has transformed from an observer of technological developments to a major player in the artificial intelligence (AI) race in less than a decade, driven by an ambitious vision to build an integrated digital economy that enhances the Kingdom’s global standing and achieves economic diversification away from dependence on oil. The launch of “Saudi Vision 2030” marked the beginning of this transformation, placing AI at the top of its strategic objectives as a key driver of innovation and improving performance across vital sectors.

In 2019, the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) was established, and the following year, it launched the National Data and Artificial Intelligence Strategy during the first Global AI Summit in Riyadh. The strategy aims to position the Kingdom among the top 15 countries in this field by 2030, attracting investments in data and AI worth approximately 75 billion riyals, stimulating entrepreneurship, and contributing to the creation of more than 300 startups. In terms of partnerships, the Kingdom signed agreements with major global technology companies such as IBM and Huawei, in addition to signing a memorandum of understanding with the International Telecommunication Union to establish a global framework supporting international cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence.

AI applications have emerged in the national economy, particularly in the energy sector, such as Aramco, to improve efficiency and reduce costs; in healthcare through the development of smart diagnostic solutions; and in the education sector by employing modern technologies to enhance learning methods.

In the field of smart cities, NEOM represents an advanced model, built on an integrated digital infrastructure that enables widespread AI applications. NEOM has entered into several strategic partnerships to establish a factory specializing in AI technologies. In addition, the NEOM Investment Fund announced this May an investment in the American company MemryX to develop semiconductor solutions for edge AI. In May 2025, the announcement by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, of the launch of HUMAIN, a company owned by the Public Investment Fund, marked a pivotal turning point in the Kingdom’s journey to develop and manage AI solutions and technologies and invest in the sector’s ecosystem.

The company will work to provide the latest AI models and applications, including the development of one of the best large language models (LLMs) in Arabic, along with a new generation of data centers and cloud computing infrastructure. This will consolidate the Kingdom’s position as a global hub for enabling the best data and AI technologies, attracting investment opportunities and the best talent in the sector from the Kingdom and around the world.

During the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh, HUMAIN announced strategic partnerships with American technology giants, including a major deal with NVIDIA to develop the Kingdom’s AI infrastructure by supplying hundreds of thousands of advanced chips, and a partnership with AMD for a $10 billion investment alliance to establish 500-megawatt AI data centers in Saudi Arabia and the United States. In addition to the strategic partnership with: AWS (Amazon Web Services): Investment plans of approximately $5 billion to establish the first “artificial intelligence region” in the Kingdom, providing advanced cloud infrastructure and services such as Bedrock and SageMaker; a partnership with Cisco: to build a flexible and secure artificial intelligence network, with the launch of the Cisco Institute for Artificial Intelligence at KAUST, and the training of half a million Saudis; Qualcomm: to develop a hybrid architecture between cloud and edge computing, and establish a local semiconductor design center; and Global AI: to give Humanine access to advanced American data centers, with plans to build similar facilities in the Kingdom. These massive partnerships by Humane reflect a clear Saudi trend toward technological sovereignty and the localization of AI infrastructure. This underscores the shift from technology consumption to its production and export, making the Kingdom one of the few countries with an integrated AI ecosystem that encompasses infrastructure, talent, and ethical standards. The Kingdom aspires to create a new economic system based on data and algorithms, capable of competing globally, at a time when geopolitical tensions are escalating over control of AI technologies and cloud infrastructure.