Saudi Arabia founds AI company "Humain" - US relaxes chip export rules for Gulf states

{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "Saudi Arabia founds AI company \"Humain\" - US relaxes chip export rules for Gulf states", "datePublished": "2025-05-13T17:30:56+02:00", "dateModified": "2025-05-13T17:07:35+02:00", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Maximilian Schreiner" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "The Decoder" }, "description": "Billions in AI investments and new export deals for US-made chips are shifting geopolitical power dynamics in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are positioning themselves as AI hubs—with backing from Silicon Valley.", "articleBody": "Billions in AI investments and new export deals for US-made chips are shifting geopolitical power dynamics in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are positioning themselves as AI hubs\u2014with backing from Silicon Valley.\r\n\r\nSaudi Arabia has launched a new AI company, Humain, which is set to play a central role in the country\u2019s national AI strategy. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman chairs the company. According to the state news agency SPA, Humain plans to build its own data centers and develop Arabic-language models for use in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.\r\n\r\nThe launch comes just ahead of US President Donald Trump\u2019s visit to Riyadh. At the same time, a US-Saudi investment forum is taking place, with Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg among the expected attendees. The forum is set to unveil multi-billion dollar agreements in AI, defense, and infrastructure.\r\nPIF leads Saudi AI push\r\nHumain is wholly owned by Saudi Arabia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which controls about $940 billion in assets. In recent years, PIF has launched several AI initiatives, including Alat\u2014which aims to invest $100 billion in AI hardware by 2030, also under the Crown Prince\u2019s leadership.\r\n\r\nAccording to the Financial Times, Humain is meant to bring more institutional clarity to Saudi AI efforts, which until now have been fragmented across numerous initiatives. The country\u2019s long-term goal is to become a global center for artificial intelligence and reduce its dependence on oil.\r\nTrump administration greenlights major US chip exports to Gulf states\r\nAt the same time, the US government is negotiating a massive shipment of AI chips to the UAE-based AI company G42. According to the New York Times, the deal would see hundreds of thousands of Nvidia and AMD chips exported\u2014both for a partnership with OpenAI and directly to G42. The talks are being led by David Sacks, the White House\u2019s AI envoy.\r\n\r\nThis move signals a reversal of the Biden administration\u2019s more restrictive chip policy, which had sharply limited exports to countries with close ties to China. G42 has previously drawn scrutiny for its work with Chinese firms like Huawei. US intelligence agencies have warned that G42 could serve as a conduit for sensitive technology to China.\r\nOpenAI and Microsoft as strategic partners\r\nOpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long pushed for more compute resources in the Middle East, hoping to expand the global infrastructure for AI models. The New York Times reports that Altman has actively lobbied for more chip export approvals to G42 and other regional partners.\r\n\r\nUnder the Biden administration, G42 was granted limited access to US chips\u2014with the condition that Microsoft controlled the hardware. G42 could sell Microsoft services based on those chips, but could not operate the infrastructure itself. Now, G42 wants to become more independent and is demanding full access.\r\nGeopolitics in the AI era\r\nThe planned deliveries to G42 and Humain could reshape the geopolitical landscape of AI technology. Alasdair Phillips-Robins of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warned that the US might risk losing control over the future of AI to political systems that fundamentally could not be trusted.\r\n\r\nDespite these concerns, the Trump administration is pursuing a new strategy: Instead of maintaining export restrictions, it is striking direct agreements with friendly governments. The first to benefit are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Trump recently rolled back a sweeping AI technology export control system introduced under Biden\u2014which divided the world into three chip zones\u2014and plans to replace it with a simpler framework.\r\n\r\nThe New York Times reports that the US government plans to announce further partnerships with regional players and US tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI during Trump\u2019s trip.", "isAccessibleForFree": "False", "hasPart": { "@type": "WebPageElement", "isAccessibleForFree": "False", "cssSelector": ".paywall-active" } }