Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN Inks US$1.2 Billion Deal With National Infrastructure Fund
The financing will support the expansion of the Kingdom’s digital infrastructure, as demand for advanced data processing and artificial intelligence services rises.
HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF)-backed artificial intelligence (AI) company, has inked a strategic financing framework agreement of up to US$1.2 billion with the government-backed National Infrastructure Fund (Infra) to support the expansion of AI and digital infrastructure projects in the Kingdom.
The agreement, which was announced on the sidelines of this year's World Economic Forum being held in Davos, Switzerland, sets out non-binding financing terms for HUMAIN’s planned development of up to 250 megawatts of hyperscale AI data center capacity in Saudi Arabia. The data centers are expected to deploy graphics processing units (GPUs) for AI training and inference, as well as to serve HUMAIN’s local, regional, and global customers.
In a statement, Tareq Amin, CEO of HUMAIN, said, “Demand growth for advanced compute is intensifying, and this framework agreement positions HUMAIN to respond with speed and scale. In partnership with Infra, our goal is to deliver world-class AI data center infrastructure that enterprises can rely on as their compute needs grow more complex.”
Eng. Esmail Alsallom, CEO of Infra, said, “Today’s framework agreement is an important step in expanding Infra's role of unlocking infrastructure investment opportunities in the Kingdom. Our partnership with HUMAIN will activate new pathways to grow institutional investment and develop the digital economy through enabling AI infrastructure.”
As part of the partnership, Infra and HUMAIN also agreed to explore the establishment of an AI data center investment platform. The platform will be anchored by both entities and structured to allow participation by local and international institutional investors, with the aim of supporting the further scaling of HUMAIN’s artificial intelligence operations.
The agreement has been said to be a reflection of Infra's role in partnering with other organizations to support the delivery of infrastructure assets linked to economic development and productivity. It also aligns with HUMAIN’s plans to expand computing capacity in response to growing demand for AI and data processing services.
