The Saudis' Bet on AI Plumbing Needs More Plumbers
Huge plans to become a hub for AI infrastructure could fizzle without enough software innovation and talent.
Elon Musk and Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang (center) are directed to greet the Saudi crown prince in Riyadh on May 13, 2025.
Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Saudi Arabia’s flurry of announcements about its plans to become an artificial intelligence powerhouse must have sounded fantastical to policymakers in other nations. Together with chipmaker Nvidia Corp., it will build one of the world’s biggest data centers dedicated to AI computing. And it will import tens of thousands of the company’s chips to be the brains of that operation, crucially, thanks to the deal-friendly Trump administration’s lifting of US export restrictions to the region.
However much the Saudis have overpromised in the past, the partnerships with Silicon Valley giants like Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Nvidia and more were marked by a summit attended by that region’s biggest stars, from Elon Musk and OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. And the project will all be strategically coordinated by a single sovereign wealth fund as part of the kingdom’s efforts to diversify away from oil.