Saudi Arabia’s AI Ambitions Sandwiched Between US and China

Key takeaways:

• Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN struck various deals with US companies in May 2025, aiming to cater to 6% of the world's AI demand.
• The country aims to leverage its low-cost energy sources to make AI computing 30% more affordable than the rest of the world.
• However, Saudi Arabia's close ties with China and the US's export controls stand in the way of the Crown's AI dreams.

Saudi Arabia's rich oil heritage has enabled the country to dominate the crude oil market for decades, making it a key player in the industry. Now, the nation aims to replicate this success in a far more ambitious field - Artificial Intelligence.

Saudi Arabia wants to cater to 6% of the world's total AI needs. That's why Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman formed Humain in May 2025.

This company, viewed as the AI equivalent of Aramco, is backed by Saudi Arabia's $1 trillion Public Investment Fund. Tareq Amin, former Aramco executive, was appointed as the CEO of Humain.

The objective is straightforward: support AI startups, build data centers, and acquire and produce AI chips, making Saudi Arabia the third-largest destination for AI, just behind China and the United States.

Saudi's Progress in the AI field

Saudi Arabia has already been taking giant strides, striking several deals in partnership with global tech companies.

• HUMAIN announced a $5M+ agreement with Amazon Web Services for AI training and data centers.
• Similarly, it struck a deal to acquire an 18,000 GB300 Grace Blackwell AI supercomputer with NVIDIA InfiniBand networking. For HUMAIN's data centers, though, final export approvals are still pending.
• The company also collaborated with AMD on a $10B investment to deploy 500MW of AI compute and build large-scale infrastructure in Saudi Arabia.
• Recently, AirTrunk, the Asia Pacific leader in data center platforms, signed a $3B investment deal with HUMAIN to build state-of-the-art data centers in Saudi Arabia and end-to-end AI capabilities.
• In a recent development, the country is in talks with Elon Musk's xAI to lease computing capacity for the latter's AI projects.

Saudi Aims for Cost Leadership

A major area where Saudi Arabia wants to emerge as a leader is the cost of AI computing. Currently, the cost of training large models is rising 2.4x per year. At this rate, training large models could cost over $1B by 2027.

Right now, operating costs represent 30-50% of an AI data center's total expenses. As per estimates, 1 gigawatt (GW) of AI data center capacity can cost around $35B to build. This massive capital barrier means only large corporations with deep pockets and strong government backing can enter the industry.

Saudi Arabia clearly understands the need to lower the cost of AI computing and aims to offer computing power at 30% lower costs. It plans to leverage its cheaper ingrown sources of renewable and conventional energy to power its data hubs.

Electricity costs in Saudi Arabia are already around 40% cheaper than in the U.S., and approvals in the country are far quicker, often coming in within weeks. This removes all bureaucratic and legal hurdles, unlike in the West.

If you lower the cost by 20 to 40 percent and offer this to a global market, people will come - Tareq Amin

Also, HUMAIN is already building a massive 6.6 GW data center in the Eastern Province. The project is being built by DataVolt, a Saudi Corporation, and is expected to be completed by 2034.

The China-US Tussle

It's no secret that the U.S. and China rarely see eye to eye - especially when it comes to technology and defense. Washington remains deeply concerned about Beijing's access to advanced AI chips, fearing their potential use in military applications, surveillance, and other malicious activities.

That's why the U.S. continues to enforce strict export controls on chip sales to certain nations, and Saudi Arabia is no exception.

Although Riyadh managed to secure several tech-related deals during Trump's May 2025 visit, Washington remains cautious. The U.S. is determined to ensure that its cutting-edge chips don't find their way into Chinese hands.

Now, the challenge for Saudi Arabia is that China is a major trade partner of the Gulf nation. For instance, in January 2025, Saudi Arabia's exports to China accounted for15.2% of the country's total exports, while Chinese imports made up 26.4% of Saudi Arabia's total imports. Quite clearly, Saudi Arabia cannot afford to side with one nation in this technological cold war, which is why it has maintained a neutral stance so far.

Saudi's Stance on Export Controls

We all know that Trump is a deal-maker who prefers to close on his own terms. But insiders suggest that Saudi Arabia isn't the type to bend easily - not even for Washington.

According to sources, Saudi officials have questioned the need for U.S. export controls on imported semiconductors. In an effort to find common ground, Riyadh reportedly proposed storing Chinese-made chips in separate data centers from those containing U.S.-made hardware. However, there has been no official confirmation of this plan yet.

Reading between the lines, it's clear Saudi Arabia doesn't want to pick sides between the U.S. and China. It wants access to both - a stance that may not sit well with Trump.

From a business standpoint, Trump's hesitation makes sense. Allowing one nation to manage both U.S. and Chinese chips could raise concerns about technology leakage or backdoor transfers to Beijing.

While HUMAIN and DataVolt insist that Chinese companies won't use their data centers, the reality on the ground tells a different story. Aramco, for instance, reportedly offered data center access to DeepSeek in February 2025, while Chinese researchers continue to utilize high-powered AI systems at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

The Dilemma of Choice

Putting it all into perspective, Saudi Arabia's ambition is clear - it wants to become the next global AI powerhouse, and it certainly has the financial muscle to make it happen. But standing in its way is a pivotal decision: whether to align more closely with the U.S. or with China.

So far, China has played a leading role in advancing Saudi Arabia's technical expertise. Yet, Beijing still lacks the cutting-edge AI technology, chips, and corporate ecosystem that the U.S. commands - a gap that makes Trump's cooperation essential. The problem? Trump won't fully commit as long as China remains in the picture.

Eventually, Saudi Arabia will have to make a choice. For now, though, the landscape points toward a delicate coexistence of U.S. and Chinese influence - both vying for dominance in the kingdom's vast deserts.

However, the thought of the two rivals being so close to each other is scary, especially for the US. Ultimately, it may so happen that Trump runs out of patience and pulls out of all the HUMAIN deals made in May 2025.

However, Saudi Arabia cannot afford to sideline China, as this would harm its trade ties with the country. The situation is delicate, akin to a careful act of balancing two sharp-edged knives on a sword. Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman will ultimately have to choose a side if the country wants to stay on course to become one of the world's largest AI powerhouses.

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