Amazon, Saudi company announce $5B joint investment

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Humain, a Saudi state-run company, on Tuesday announced a more than $5 billion joint investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

The two companies plan to invest in a strategic partnership to build a groundbreaking "AI Zone" in Saudi Arabia.

"This first-of-a-kind AI Zone will bring together multiple innovative capabilities, including dedicated AWS AI infrastructure and servers with world-class semiconductors, UltraCluster networks for faster AI training and inference, AWS services like SageMaker and Bedrock, and AI application services such as Amazon Q to advance Saudi Arabia's mission to be a world leader in AI," Amazon said in a statement.

It noted that the collaboration aligns with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 and builds on the kingdom's pledge in 2024 to invest in building an AI-powered economy, representing a significant step toward realizing Saudi Arabia's ambitions to become a global AI leader.

"AWS will bring to Saudi Arabia its advanced server and network infrastructure capabilities, as well as its artificial intelligence and machine learning services—including Amazon SageMaker AI, Amazon Bedrock, and Amazon Q, fully managed services for building and scaling generative AI (genAI) applications," it added.