Elon Musk’s xAI and Jensen Huang-led Nvidia announced Wednesday they are partnering with Saudi Arabia’s state-backed artificial intelligence firm to build a massive AI data center in the Persian Gulf kingdom.
The center is expected to consume as much as 500 megawatts of electricity – making it xAI’s largest site outside the US, according to reports.
As part of the deal, Musk’s xAI chatbot, Grok, will be deployed throughout Saudi Arabia, according to an xAI press release.
The partners did not share the value of the deal.
The US on Wednesday appeared to clear the way for Saudi Arabia to buy American semiconductors during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s trip to Washington, DC.
US authorities have been blocking the sale of AI semiconductors to the Middle East, putting a damper on the crown prince’s plans to turn his oil-rich kingdom into a hub for new tech.
Musk, meanwhile, has been racing to build out pricey data centers – particularly his Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, Tenn. – in hopes of catching up with industry giants like OpenAI.
The new deal was reportedly in the works for months. It was held up by the AI chip export curbs, according to the New York Times.
It’s not the first time Musk has turned to the kingdom for partners. Saudi Arabia backed the billionaire’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter – since renamed X – in 2022.
“The future of intelligence will be engineered through massive, efficient compute combined with the most advanced AI models,” Musk said in a statement Wednesday.
“Humain’s capabilities enable us to build that future faster in Saudi Arabia,” he added, referring to the Saudi state-backed AI firm.
Humain CEO Tareq Amin said the deal will “[create] scale that few others can match.”
Humain, which was created in May with funding from the kingdom’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, also announced a partnership with Cisco and AMD on Wednesday.
Humain committed to developing up to one gigawatt – or roughly the capacity of a large power plant – of AI infrastructure by 2030.
Prince Mohammed has been trying to transform Saudi Arabia into a major AI exporter, looking to take advantage of the kingdom’s vast energy reserves and abundant land.
AI data centers — widely viewed as the key to winning the artificial intelligence race — are mostly located in the US, Europe and China.
Humain is aiming to power 6% of the global AI workload over the coming years.
American tech firms have been leaning heavily on Middle Eastern partners to fund expensive AI infrastructure projects – including Saudi Arabia, despite its history of human rights abuses.
OpenAI signed a deal this year with MGX, a United Arab Emirates state-backed firm, and Anthropic has received funding from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.
Several tech leaders, including Musk, joined the crown prince at a White House dinner hosted by Trump on Tuesday.
