Amazon Web Services and HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia’s newly created company responsible for driving AI innovation across the Kingdom and globally, today announced plans to invest over US$5 billion in a strategic partnership to build a groundbreaking “AI Zone” in the Kingdom. This first-of-its-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 such as SageMaker and Bedrock, and AI application services like Amazon Q — advancing Saudi Arabia’s mission to become a world leader in AI.
AWS had previously announced, and is currently building, an AWS infrastructure region in Saudi Arabia, which will be available in 2026. Amazon is investing US$5.3 billion (approximately 19.88 billion Saudi riyals) in the Kingdom to develop this new region for AWS. The new AI Zone announced today represents an additional investment aimed at growing global and local demand for advanced AI services within Saudi Arabia, as part of AWS’s long-term commitment to deliver world-class infrastructure and services to the Kingdom.
This collaboration aligns with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and builds upon the Kingdom’s pledge in 2024 to invest in developing an AI-powered economy — a significant step towards realising Saudi Arabia’s ambitions of becoming a global AI leader. AWS will bring to Saudi Arabia its advanced server and network infrastructure, alongside 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. With Amazon Bedrock in the Kingdom, businesses and government organisations will be able to access high-performing models from leading AI companies to develop genAI applications with security, privacy, and responsible AI at their core. Amazon Q, the world’s most capable coding assistant, will also enable organisations to build genAI-powered assistants to answer questions, generate summaries, create content, and complete tasks using enterprise data.
Through this collaboration, HUMAIN plans to develop AI solutions leveraging AWS technologies for its end customers. Further, HUMAIN will work with AWS to develop a unified AI agent marketplace, simplifying the discovery, deployment, and management of AI software for the Saudi government. The partnership also aims to drive the growth of Large Language Models (LLMs), including Arabic Large Language Models (ALLaM), while spearheading widespread AI adoption across organisations and industries throughout the Gulf region and beyond.
Key sectors, including government, energy, healthcare, and education, will be able to accelerate their transformation, with AI-powered tools that can personalise learning experiences for students, support early disease diagnosis for patients, and enhance productivity across core upstream and downstream government processes. Such use cases will be advanced through the AWS Generative AI Innovation Centre, in partnership with HUMAIN, enabling customers — from fast-growing start-ups and large enterprises to government agencies — to accelerate genAI initiatives and workloads, contributing to equitable and efficient delivery of vital services for wider societal benefit.
“We thank AWS for doubling down on their long-term partnership with the Kingdom. This new collaboration with HUMAIN lays the foundation for the intelligent era, accelerates our innovation momentum, grows our talent, and reinforces Saudi Arabia’s position as a global partner of choice in the age of AI,” stated His Excellency Eng. Abdullah Alswaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology.
Fueling Saudi Arabia’s Vibrant Start-up Sector with AI-Powered Innovation
AWS and HUMAIN will also collaborate to advance the Kingdom’s AI-powered start-up sector, providing access to the most comprehensive suite of cloud technology tools and programmes, including AWS Activate, helping Saudi Arabia’s most ambitious founders and entrepreneurs to scale their businesses.
Globally, AWS has supported over 330,000 start-ups in bringing their business ideas to life. Its scalable, secure, and cost-effective cloud solutions and AI-powered services, combined with HUMAIN’s extensive support network, will further energise Saudi Arabia’s start-up ecosystem. According to MAGNiTT, Saudi Arabian start-ups secured US$750 million in venture capital funding in 2024 — the largest share of capital deployed across the Middle East and North Africa during the past year.
“This collaboration to build an AI Zone in Saudi Arabia will enable innovations across every sector through AWS’s advanced AI offerings and reflects our commitment to supporting the Kingdom’s Vision 2030,” said Matt Garman, CEO, Amazon Web Services. “Together, we will empower customers with secure, cost-effective cloud technologies, fuel innovation and economic growth, and enable HUMAIN to attract customers globally.”
Accelerating Talent Development for a Vibrant Saudi Tech Industry
As part of its long-term commitment to fast-track cloud adoption in the Kingdom, AWS is expanding its training and certification programmes focused on genAI skills development, in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 digital transformation objectives. In collaboration with the Public Investment Fund (PIF), AWS has pledged to train 100,000 citizens in cloud computing and genAI, including two new AWS certifications: AI Practitioner and Machine Learning Engineer Associate. Training will be delivered via the Amazon Academy — the largest programme of its kind in the Middle East — which launched in 2023 and offers free, transformative training and certification to help Saudi talent develop in-demand skills for future roles in cloud computing, logistics, and leadership.
Additionally, to help accelerate Saudi Arabia’s goal of empowering women and increasing their participation in the workforce, AWS also launched the “AWS Saudi Arabia Women’s Skills Initiative” in 2024, in partnership with Skillsoft Global Knowledge. AWS has committed to training 10,000 women through free classroom sessions led by AWS-certified professionals in Cloud Practitioner Essentials.
Supercharging HUMAIN’s AI Ambitions
Saudi Arabia is forecast to capture the largest share of AI’s projected economic impact across the Middle East in the coming years. According to PwC, AI is expected to contribute US$130 billion to the Kingdom’s economy by 2030, accounting for more than 40 per cent of the anticipated US$320 billion in AI value for the entire region.
The Kingdom is also leading a regional drive to transform both public services and enterprises through AI-powered, cloud-based innovation. PwC estimates that nearly 70 per cent of Middle Eastern companies plan to migrate the majority of their operations to the cloud within the next year. Meanwhile, a 2023 report by Telecom Advisory Services predicts public cloud adoption will unlock US$733 billion in economic value by 2033 across the Middle East and North Africa.
“HUMAIN’s partnership with AWS marks a pivotal moment in Saudi Arabia’s journey to becoming a global leader in AI,” said Tareq Amin, CEO of HUMAIN. “By combining AWS’s world-class cloud infrastructure and AI expertise with HUMAIN’s full-stack AI capabilities, we are establishing an offering that will attract global investment and talent — propelling our digital transformation ambitions forward.”
