Exclusive: Saudi AI firm HUMAIN to launch giant global VC fund this year

Saudi AI firm HUMAIN will launch a large global venture capital fund this year, potentially exceeding a previously discussed $10 billion vehicle, the company’s chief executive Tareq Amin said. The fund — which will have offices in the United States, Saudi Arabia, France and the United Kingdom — follows HUMAIN’s high‑profile $3 billion investment in Elon Musk’s xAI in February and is intended to accelerate the firm’s pace of investment in frontier AI companies while tying those investments to compute commitments in Saudi data centers.

“We don’t do passive investments, that will never happen,” Amin said, underlining HUMAIN’s hands‑on approach as it links capital deployment to operational commitments such as running compute in Saudi facilities or relocating staff to the kingdom.

HUMAIN was launched by the state‑controlled Public Investment Fund in May 2025 and is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The firm has moved rapidly to build an AI ecosystem: it has announced plans for six gigawatts of AI data center capacity in Saudi Arabia by 2034, secured a 16‑gigawatt power commitment from the Saudi Ministry of Energy, and struck commercial and technology agreements with US firms including xAI, Groq, Nvidia and Qualcomm. The company has taken minority stakes in startups such as video‑generation firm Luma AI and has developed its own HUMAIN laptop and operating system.

Security and resiliency amid regional tensions

As Saudi Arabia has become entangled in the US‑Iran conflict, HUMAIN has been beefing up protections around its data center footprint. “In this era, data centers are treated like critical national infrastructure,” Amin said, adding that HUMAIN’s facilities are “distributed across the country and are being very well hardened in terms of security architecture.” He said the company is applying the same resiliency lessons Aramco used to secure oil infrastructure — notable because Aramco is one of HUMAIN’s shareholders.

HUMAIN has not seen a slowdown in demand despite the conflict; Amin said the company’s compute is about 30% cheaper for customers than elsewhere, drawing interest from global hyperscalers. Those offtake commitments have made it possible to finance construction with secured borrowing, and a $3 billion partnership with Blackstone has further supported the data center buildout even as other projects in the kingdom trim spending.

• Major investments and commitments: $3 billion invested in xAI; state sovereign fund disclosed a $26 billion SpaceX stake; six gigawatts of planned data centers by 2034; 16 gigawatt power commitment.
• Commercial partners and suppliers: xAI, Groq, Nvidia, Qualcomm; Luma AI stake; November 2025 US approval for advanced AI chip exports to HUMAIN.
• Geographic footprint: offices planned in the US, Saudi Arabia, France and the UK; HUMAIN Limitless dedicated to Saudi AI companies.

Outlook

Amin said HUMAIN is preparing contingencies to accelerate capacity if asked by the crown prince and warned that global power capacity is likely insufficient for expected AI demand. He emphasized HUMAIN’s close ties with the US government on semiconductor supply: “We have a phenomenal relationship with the US government and the export controls function of the government,” he said, adding that he does not foresee obstacles to obtaining required chip capacity. Under an agreed framework, HUMAIN will not allow Chinese frontier AI models to train on its clusters, offering only inferencing for Chinese open‑source models on Saudi infrastructure.