The foreign press’ interest in Saudi AI ambitions is growing, as the Financial Times broke down Saudi Arabia and the Gulf’s potential to become superpowers for electricity-intensive AI infrastructure.

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Gulf states “have the capital, the energy, the political will,” said Sam Winter-Levy, fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Following US President Donald Trump’s visit to the region, Gulf nations are poised to be granted access to AI-powering chips after easing prior restrictions on accessing vital US chip technology.

The salmon-colored paper highlighted some of the obstacles facing the Gulf’s ambitious AI goals, including the lack of skilled workforces compared to Silicon Valley or Shanghai, lower research output, and the absence of a globally leading AI model company. Current research, like developing Arabic LLM, is mainly driven by state-affiliated entities and royal leadership.

The paper also covered what Saudi Arabia and the Gulf are doing to overcome these hurdles, including offering incentives like low taxes, golden visas, and lax regulations to attract global AI talent. In addition, the Gulf’s harsh climate for data center operations could be counterbalanced by ample land and cheap energy.

BUT- Saudi Arabia and the Gulf need more indigenous AI companies to benefit from the expanding infrastructure, beyond serving US companies, the FT argued. While Gulf states aim to provide their expensive AI facilities to neighboring African and Asian countries, US-based companies like OpenAI are expected to be the main customers.

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