Saudi Arabia’s National Infrastructure Fund and Humain, an artificial intelligence company backed by the Public Investment Fund, have settled on a financing model potentially valued at $1.2 billion to expand AI and digital infrastructure in the Kingdom.
According to a statement, the non-binding agreement, which was announced on the margins of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, provides the financing terms to build up to 250 megawatts of AI data center capacity to cater to the local, regional, and global clients of Humain.
The project to support the Vision 2030 program of Saudi Arabia, which is set to transform the Kingdom into a technological hub in the region by the close of the decade.
Tareq Amin, CEO of Humain, said, “Demand growth for advanced compute is intensifying, and this Framework Agreement positions Humain to respond with speed and scale.”
He stated, “In partnership with Infra, our goal is to deliver world-class AI data center infrastructure that enterprises can rely on as their compute needs grow more complex.”
In accordance with the deal, Infra and Humain have also agreed to look into the creation of an AI data center investment platform.
This would be pegged by the two organizations and designed to enable the participation of global and local institutional investors to enable the future scalability of the AI strategy of Humain.
Esmail Alsallom, the CEO of Infra, opined that the framework agreement is a significant move in the growth of Infra’s role of unlocking infrastructure investment opportunities in the Kingdom.
He added, “Our partnership with Humain will activate new pathways to grow institutional investment and develop the digital economy through enabling AI infrastructure.”
Therefore, the Humain has increased its activity in recent months as Saudi Arabia takes steps to provide capacity to enable artificial intelligence workloads.
The company granted Al Moammar Information Systems Co. a contract in December to design and construct a dedicated data center focused on AI technologies.
It has also collaborated with Saudi Telecom Co. to form a joint venture on the development and operation of AI-oriented data centers in the Kingdom. In a Tadawul filing, Humain will be the majority stakeholder in the joint venture with a share of 51 percent, whereas stc will have the remaining 49 percent.
The data center will be built under the subsidiary of stc, which happens to be the Digital Data and Communications Centers, also referred to as center3.
The plant will be equipped with modern infrastructure that can support up to 1 gigawatt of power, beginning with an initial capacity of 250 MW, depending on customer demand.
