Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., along with HUMAIN, the newly established entity in Saudi Arabia dedicated to spearheading AI innovation both nationally and globally, has unveiled plans to invest over $5 billion in a strategic partnership aimed at developing a pioneering “AI Zone” within the Kingdom. This unprecedented AI Zone will integrate a variety of cutting-edge capabilities, featuring dedicated AWS AI infrastructure and servers equipped with world-class semiconductors, UltraCluster networks designed for expedited AI training and inference, and AWS services such as Sagemaker and Bedrock, alongside AI application services like Amazon Q, all aimed at propelling Saudi Arabia’s ambition to emerge as a global leader in AI.
Previously, AWS announced and is in the process of establishing an AWS infrastructure region in Saudi Arabia, set to become operational in 2026. Amazon is committing approximately $5.3 billion (about SAR19.88 billion) to develop this new AWS region. The newly announced AI Zone represents an additional investment to drive both global and local demand for advanced AI services within the Kingdom, and is a part of AWS’s enduring commitment to deliver its world-class infrastructure and services to Saudi Arabia.
Alignment with Vision 2030
This partnership is in harmony with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and builds on the Kingdom’s commitment made in 2024 to invest in cultivating an AI-powered economy, marking a significant stride towards realizing Saudi Arabia’s goals to become a leading global player in AI. AWS will provide its advanced server and network infrastructure capabilities, along with its artificial intelligence and machine learning services, including Amazon Sagemaker AI, Amazon Bedrock, and Amazon Q—fully managed services designed for the development and scaling of generative AI (genAI) applications. With Amazon Bedrock available in Saudi Arabia, businesses and governmental organizations will have access to high-performing models from leading AI firms to create genAI applications with an emphasis on security, privacy, and responsible AI practices.
Furthermore, Amazon Q stands as the world’s most proficient coding assistant, empowering organizations to develop genAI-powered assistants capable of answering queries, generating summaries, creating content, and completing tasks based on enterprise data.
Through this collaboration, HUMAIN is set to create AI solutions utilizing AWS technologies for its end users. Additionally, HUMAIN will partner with AWS to develop a unified AI agent marketplace, which will streamline the discovery, deployment, and management of AI software for the Saudi government. The initiative also aims to promote the growth of Large Language Models (LLMs), including Arabic Large Language Models (ALLaM), while driving widespread AI adoption in various organizations and industries across the Gulf Region and beyond.
Read more: PIF’s HUMAIN partners with NVIDIA to advance Saudi Arabia’s AI ecosystem
Transforming key sectors with AI
Key sectors such as government, energy, healthcare, and education stand to benefit from accelerated transformation, envisioning AI-driven tools that personalize learning experiences for students, facilitate early disease diagnoses for patients, and enhance productivity across essential upstream and downstream processes in government administration. Use cases like these will be advanced through the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, in collaboration with HUMAIN, enabling a diverse range of customers—from the most rapidly growing startups to major enterprises and government agencies—to amplify their genAI roadmaps and workloads, thus facilitating the equitable and efficient delivery of essential services for a greater societal impact.
“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, Saudi minister of Communications and Information Technology.
Fueling Saudi Arabia’s vibrant startup sector with AI-powered innovation
AWS and HUMAIN will collaborate to advance an AI-driven startup sector in the Kingdom, providing access to an extensive array of cloud technology tools and programs, including AWS Activate, and assisting Saudi Arabia’s most ambitious founders and entrepreneurs in scaling their businesses.
AWS has supported more than 330,000 startups around the globe in bringing their business concepts to fruition. Its scalable, secure, low-cost cloud solutions and AI-powered services, coupled with HUMAIN’s robust support network, will invigorate Saudi’s startup ecosystem. According to MAGNiTT, Saudi Arabia’s startups secured $750 million in venture capital funding in 2024, marking the highest share of capital deployed across the Middle East and North Africa last year.
“This collaboration to build an AI Zone in Saudi Arabia will enable innovations across all industries using AWS’s advanced AI offerings and reflects our commitment to support Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030,” remarked Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services. “Together, we will empower customers with cost-effective and secure cloud technologies, fuel innovation and economic growth across the nation, and enable HUMAIN to appeal to customers globally.”
Read more: Saudi Arabia Crown Prince launches HUMAIN, a PIF-owned company to invest in AI
Accelerating talent development for a vibrant Saudi tech industry
In line with its long-term commitment to expedite cloud adoption in Saudi Arabia, AWS is expanding its training and certification initiatives focused on genAI skills development, aligning with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 digital transformation objectives. In collaboration with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), AWS has pledged to train 100,000 citizens from the Kingdom in cloud computing and genAI, concentrating on the two newest AWS genAI certifications: AWS AI Practitioner and AWS Machine Learning Engineer Associate Certifications.
Training will be conducted by the Amazon Academy. Launched in 2023, the Amazon Academy is the largest talent development program of its kind in the Middle East, offering transformative training and certifications free of charge to participants, aimed at enhancing in-demand competencies and equipping Saudi talent for the jobs of the future. This program is designed to empower the upcoming generation of Saudi youth, entrepreneurs, and professionals at every career stage to achieve success in skills areas such as cloud computing, logistics, and leadership.
Moreover, to expedite Saudi Arabia’s objective of empowering women to enhance their participation in the workforce, AWS launched an upskilling program in 2024, called the “AWS Saudi Arabia Women’s Skills Initiative,” in partnership with Skillsoft Global Knowledge. AWS has committed to training 10,000 women on AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials, at no cost, through classroom sessions led by AWS-certified professionals.
Supercharging HUMAIN’s AI ambitions
Forecasts indicate that Saudi Arabia will capture the majority of AI’s projected economic impact across the Middle East in the coming years. According to PwC, AI is expected to contribute $130 billion to Saudi’s economy by 2030, accounting for more than 40 percent of the estimated $320 billion AI value for the entire Middle East.
The Kingdom is also at the forefront of a regional movement to revolutionize both public sector services and enterprises with AI-driven innovations built in the cloud. PwC estimates that nearly 70 percent of Middle Eastern companies plan to migrate most of their operations to the cloud within the upcoming year, while a 2023 report by Telecom Advisory Services anticipates that public cloud adoption will unlock $733 billion in economic value by 2033 across the Middle East and North Africa.
“HUMAIN’s partnership with AWS is a pivotal moment in Saudi Arabia’s journey to become a global leader in AI,” commented Tareq Amin, CEO of HUMAIN. “By leveraging AWS’s world-class cloud infrastructure and AI expertise along with HUMAIN’s full-stack AI capabilities, we are creating an offering that will attract global investment and talent, thereby propelling our digital transformation agenda forward.”
