Saudi AI chief vows to avoid Huawei tech in bid for US chips

[NEW YORK] Tareq Amin, the head of Saudi Arabia’s artificial intelligence (AI) startup Humain, said that he is confident the US will clear the sale of advanced chips to the kingdom after his firm provided detailed guarantees to American officials.

One of those guarantees, according to Amin: The company will not purchase equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies.

“In our case, I will never do that,” Humain’s chief executive officer said in an interview at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s annual investment showpiece. The US government has for years imposed a series of restrictions on China’s tech industry, including blacklisting companies such as Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International that are perceived as national champions.

Humain launched in May as the new centrepiece of Saudi Arabia’s strategy to be a force in AI. The company, owned by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, announced a series of updates this week tied to FII. That included a partnership with Blackstone to invest about US$3 billion in data centres in the country. Amin said that the effort will likely grow and may eventually include other firms such as BlackRock, KKR and DigitalBridge Group.

Amin, a former executive for Aramco Digital, has described Humain’s ambition to be the third-largest provider of computing capacity globally, behind the US and China. One major impediment to those plans is the company’s ability to access cutting-edge AI accelerators from American companies such as Nvidia.

Saudi Arabia is subject to US restrictions on AI chip exports, with shipments of advanced accelerators requiring a license from Washington. Officials in the kingdom have for months been working with American counterparts on an agreement to facilitate permits, a process that’s focused in large part on safeguarding the hardware from China.

Neighbouring UAE, meanwhile, has secured an initial batch of licenses to be used by American companies in the Gulf nation.

Amin said that he has dealt with similar political hurdles in his prior role at Rakuten Group when the Japanese company sought the blessing of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US. He said that he’s shared Humain’s security plans with US officials.

“All I could do, as CEO of a private entity, is to put together what I call the defence package to show the security apparatus of Humain,” Amin said. “It is really remarkably different than anything else in this region.”

He also pointed to its partnerships with Western tech firms. Humain has announced agreements with Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and California-based chip startup Groq. Earlier this week, Humain said that it would be the first customer of Qualcomm’s new chips competing with Nvidia.

All of these companies have applied for export licenses to sell into Saudi Arabia, according to Amin. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said later on Tuesday that he was unsure about the status of licenses for Saudi Arabia.

Humain previously said it plans to deploy around 18,000 chips in 2026. Amin described that as the “first phase” and said Humain is aiming to deploy as many as 400,000 AI chips by 2030.

Amin said he is “extremely happy” with the progress on the diplomatic talks between the US and Saudi Arabia about chip exports. He cited a planned trip that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Humain’s chairman, is expected to make to the US next month.

“We’re not far away,” Amin said. “You could derive a possible outcome in November.”

Separately on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Aramco announced a non-binding term sheet outlining terms for Aramco to buy a “significant minority stake” in Humain. The joint statement did not lay out how much of a stake Aramco is proposing to take but noted that PIF would continue to own the majority of the startup. BLOOMBERG