The US-Saudi Investment Forum held in Washington saw the signing of a spate of AI infrastructure agreements on Wednesday, according to a statement. The pacts came as part of USD 267 bn in new agreements for collaborations that also include defence, mining, energy, and nuclear power, and they add to USD 307 bn signed during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May.

DATA CENTERS

PIF’s AI champion Humain stole the show at the forum, partnering with big names in the US tech sector to power the delivery of both AI infrastructure and software in Saudi and abroad. The partnerships build on the Commerce Department’s approval yesterday to sell highly advanced Nvidia chips to Humain.

#1- An AI infrastructure JV with Cisco, AMD: Humain is partnering up with AMD and Cisco to form a JV that builds data centers in the Middle East, according to a statement from Cisco. AMD and Cisco will be exclusive suppliers of products and services to the JV, targeting to deliver 1 GW of AI infrastructure by 2030.

What we know: AMD and Cisco are minority shareholders and will share in gains and losses, CEOs of the three companies told Reuters without disclosing additional financial details. "We will together really have responsibility for ensuring that it's successful," AMD CEO Lisa Su said.

Already landed the first client: The unnamed JV will start with delivering a 100 MW data center in Saudi Arabia to supply video startup Luma AI, Humain CEO Tareq Amin told the newswire. Cisco will provide networking equipment and infrastructure while AMD will provide its MI450 AI chips. Cisco will also push capacity sales for future data centers, CEO Chuck Robbins said.

Construction of the first stage is slated to begin in 2026, using renewable energy entirely, Amin added.

#2- Humain led a USD 900 mn Series C funding round in Luma AI, which saw participation from AMD, and existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Amplify Partners, and Matrix Partners, according to a press release. The round values Luma at USD 4 bn.

Luma will be the anchor customer for Project Halo, an AI data center cluster in Saudi that is planned to eventually reach 2 GW of capacity, the statement said. The first GW is targeted to be online by 2030, Humain’s Tareq Amin told Bloomberg.

Luma’s partnership with Humain dates back to June, when the two announced that the AI startup will be powering the entertainment division Humain Create.

#3- Humain is also partnering up with Elon Musk’s xAI to build a network of data centers, according to a statement. The two companies will start with a 500 MW facility in Saudi, and will cooperate to deploy xAI’s Grok models across the Kingdom.

… and Amazon: The PIF company is expanding its partnership with Amazon Web Services to deploy and manage up to 150k AI accelerators in a specialized data center facility called an “AI Zone,” according to a statement. The zone is set to serve both Saudi and global customers with compute capabilities.

Qualcomm and Adobe, too: Qualcomm is planning to open an AI engineering center in Riyadh to support Humain’s rollout of 200 MW in data center capacity,. Meanwhile, Adobe is collaborating with Humain on building Arab world-focused AI models and applications for creative use cases, including advertising, film, education and e-gaming.

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