Elon Musk and Jensen Huang Partner with Saudi AI Startup Humain to Build Massive Data Centre
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced new partnerships with Saudi Arabian artificial intelligence startup Humain at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum held on November 19. The collaboration includes plans to develop a massive 500-megawatt data centre in Saudi Arabia, marking one of the largest projects of its kind in the region.
Huang praised the scale of the project, saying, “Could you imagine a start-up company — approximately zero billion dollars in revenues — now going to build a data centre for Elon. 500 megawatts is gigantic. This company is off the charts.”
He also confirmed that Nvidia is working with Saudi Arabia to build supercomputers capable of “simulating quantum computers,” signalling the kingdom’s growing ambitions in advanced computing and artificial intelligence.
U.S.-Saudi Forum Draws Global Business Leaders
The high-profile forum, hosted at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., brought together senior executives from leading U.S. and Saudi companies. U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the gathering, which focused on strengthening economic and technological ties between the two nations.
CEOs from major corporations including Chevron, Palantir, Aramco, Qualcomm, Cisco, Adobe, General Dynamics and Pfizer attended the event. Senior representatives from the Blackstone Group, Boeing, IBM, Google (Alphabet), Salesforce, Supermicro, Lockheed Martin, Saudia Group, Andreessen Horowitz, Halliburton, State Street and Parsons Corporation were also expected to participate.
Focus on Innovation and Investment
The forum’s agenda featured panels on artificial intelligence, energy, technology, aerospace, healthcare and finance, reflecting a shared interest in diversifying economic growth through innovation.
The partnership with Humain aligns with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 strategy, which aims to position the kingdom as a global technology hub. For U.S. companies like Tesla and Nvidia, the collaboration offers access to emerging markets and a chance to expand their AI and data infrastructure footprint in the Middle East.
In May, the United States and Saudi Arabia announced multibillion-dollar investments in both countries during Trump’s four-day visit to the Middle East, underscoring the strategic depth of their partnership.
The new Humain data centre could serve as a key platform for AI research, autonomous technologies and large-scale cloud computing, further integrating Saudi Arabia into the global technology ecosystem.
with inputs from Reuters