Who is the winner?
What happened? A series of significant economic agreements in the field of artificial intelligence, with a total value exceeding $100 billion. These moves come at a time when countries are racing to invest in digital infrastructure and expand their capabilities in future technologies, with artificial intelligence being one of the most prominent tools for global economic growth.
Among these agreements, the most notable was between the American company Nvidia, a leader in artificial intelligence chips, and the Saudi startup 'Humain', which was launched with direct support from the Public Investment Fund. In the first phase of the agreement, Saudi Arabia will purchase 18,000 units of the Blackwell B200 chips, the latest produced by Nvidia, valued at an estimated $630 to $720 million. The quantity is expected to rise to hundreds of thousands of units in the coming years, in a deal that could reach tens of billions of dollars, making it one of the largest and most important artificial intelligence deals in the world to date.
Saudi Arabia intends to use these chips to build massive data centers, known as 'Artificial Intelligence Factories' with a capacity of 500 megawatts, which will be the foundation for developing advanced language models, generative artificial intelligence technologies, and big data analytics solutions. This step is part of the Kingdom's vision to diversify income sources away from oil and solidify its position as a regional hub for innovation and technology.
The importance of the Nvidia deal stems not only from its financial or technical scale but also from its reflection of a strategic shift in Gulf investment towards owning technological production tools rather than merely consuming them. It also affirms the willingness of major American companies to forge long-term partnerships with government-supported startups in the Gulf, reflecting mutual confidence in shared growth.
In addition to this deal, companies such as Google, Oracle, Salesforce, AMD, and Uber announced their intention to invest $80 billion in joint projects with Saudi Arabia, covering artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and software development. For its part, Saudi company DataVolt announced a $20 billion investment to establish AI-powered data centers in the United States, a move that enhances economic connectivity in both directions.
In the UAE, there are reports of an agreement between American company Cisco and UAE company G42 for collaboration in cybersecurity and data center infrastructure. Reports indicated that a pending deal with Nvidia could involve supplying the UAE with over a million chips by 2027, including 200,000 chips allocated for G42 in the coming years, reflecting an unprecedented level of expansion in artificial intelligence infrastructure in the region.
All these indicators suggest that Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are seriously seeking to build a new economic base based on knowledge and data. It seems that artificial intelligence will be the pivotal tool in this transformation. From the American side, these partnerships represent an opportunity to enhance technological exports and create new markets in a reliable and stable geopolitical environment.
Ongoing transformations indicate that the coming years may witness the emergence of regional production centers for artificial intelligence in the Middle East, rather than just consuming these technologies. If these investments continue to grow in this manner, the region could become a key player in the global intelligence economy within a decade, in strategic partnership with technology giants in Silicon Valley.