Humain CEO Tareq Amin on Saudi’s AI transformation

Launched back in May, PIF’s Humain is already dominating Saudi’s AI sector through new products, infrastructure, and high-impact partnerships that aim to transform work, entertainment, and beyond.

We sat down with CEO Tareq Amin, to discuss the company's ambitious vision for AI infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, and their new Arabic-first generative AI product Humain Chat. Amin also shared insights into Humain's commitment to cultivating local Saudi talent, and strategic partnerships aimed at reshaping the future of entertainment. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

Humain was driven by a bold national vision — to ensure that Saudi Arabia builds its own AI infrastructure rather than relying on technology made elsewhere. As part of this architecture, we have seen that AI innovation is often fragmented with compute, cloud, and models, and is more spread across organizations, which creates unnecessary complexities. Humain was created to solve this fragmentation by integrating the entire value chain.

Our latest product, Humain Chat, was built to empower more than 400 mn Arabic speakers and 2 bn Muslims worldwide who have been underserved by generative AI. We first rolled out across the Kingdom, and we have plans to roll out in phases around the world. For the first time, people can create, learn, and connect in their own language, culture, and context. I encourage everyone to download the app now and engage with it regularly. This is a point of pride for Saudi Arabia, and the more that you use it, the better it becomes.

What sets Humain Chat apart is its deep understanding of dialects and cultural nuances. Launched last month, our app is powered by ALLaM 34B, the most advanced Arabic-first LLM built in the Arab world. We believe ALLaM 34B was built on the largest Arabic dataset ever assembled, then refined with input from over 600 domain experts and 250 evaluators.

I could not be prouder of the brilliant Saudi talent that we have at the company. Humain Chat was built by a Saudi-majority team comprised of more than 120 AI specialists, with 35 PhD holders on board. We are committed to cultivating local talent by hiring and enabling Saudi professionals with the tools, prospects, and support they need to ensure that the Kingdom and its people play a leading role in shaping the future of AI. This means not only bringing in top Saudi experts into our core teams, but also ensuring young developers and researchers are a key part of the process of building and advancing Humain’s future.

Our model is hosted on Saudi servers, ensuring data sovereignty and security while giving users confidence that their information is managed in compliance with the Kingdom’s regulations and privacy standards. It also provides faster performance with lower latency and quicker load times, one of the notes that users have praised in reviews.

It also reflects Humain’s commitment to building capacity in Saudi Arabia, strengthening the digital ecosystem while ensuring users benefit from infrastructure that is sovereign, secure, and optimized for their needs. This is fully aligned with Vision 2030, which includes AI as a national priority and a driver of economic growth supporting the Kingdom’s capability to develop advanced technologies.

We’ve just begun construction of our first data centers in the Kingdom, located in Riyadh and Dammam, which are expected to launch in the second quarter of next year. Looking ahead, we anticipate strong and sustained demand for data centers driven by the rapid rise of AI workloads and digital transformation across the region. To meet this demand, we plan to build 1.9 GW of new data center capacity by 2030 and scale that up to 6.6 GW by 2034. At the same time, we’re expanding and diversifying our ecosystem of partners to support this ambitious growth.

This is just the beginning. Humain Chat marks the first product in our Humain IQ portfolio, as our AI researchers and developers are dedicated to pushing the boundaries of innovation and creating solutions that address complex industry challenges. We have a strong pipeline of products and technologies that we can’t wait to bring to market — and you will be hearing more about them over the coming weeks.

On the media, video games, and advertising side, Humain Create aims to develop cutting-edge AI tools capable of generating photorealistic images and videos for gaming and other media applications. These tools will not only enhance creative production but also open new prospects across the entire value chain. We hope to continue to develop our strategic partnerships in this space to play an impactful role in the national strategy.

Our partnership with Luma AI is key to our strategy to reshape the future of entertainment. By combining Humain’s advanced AI infrastructure with Luma’s advanced generative models, we can deliver lightning-fast inference and hyperreal content generation at a global scale. Beyond infrastructure, this partnership enables us to codevelop next-generation models, fine-tune capabilities, and empower creators to push the boundaries of immersive experiences.

In-gaming ads will allow brands to reach and engage with their target audiences in a unique and immersive way. Using our technology, ads are seamlessly integrated into gameplay, creating an interactive experience that feels natural rather than disruptive. We use advanced algorithms to dynamically insert ads within the game environment, considering factors such as player behavior, game context, and ad relevance. This ensures that each ad is delivered in a way that is both impactful for the brand and respectful of the player's experience.

At Humain, we leverage AI across various aspects of our internal operations. We have big news for enterprises that we plan to announce soon, which will revolutionize the way we work. Our team has already been testing these AI-powered tools that will enhance workflows, automate routine tasks, and improve overall efficiency.