Building artificial intelligence at national scale takes data centres, abundant energy and patient capital. On Sunday, 1 November 2026, two of the Kingdom’s largest institutions put those ingredients into one company: the Public Investment Fund and Aramco said in a joint statement that Aramco now owns 49% of HUMAIN through a wholly owned subsidiary, with PIF keeping the other 51%.
Aramco’s side of the arrangement is about SR9.9 billion ($2.6 billion) in cash during 2026, plus its own AI, computing and digital assets.
The two parties first set out the plan in a non-binding term sheet on 28 October 2025, so the process took roughly a year. HUMAIN itself is only about 18 months old, having launched in May 2025.
What changes for the Kingdom’s AI work? HUMAIN now has a shareholder that is also a large potential user. Aramco and its affiliates expect to draw on its infrastructure and services for industrial applications across their global operations.
The company’s work spans next-generation data centres, high-performance cloud computing, advanced models including the Arabic model ALLaM, and specialised solutions for government and business. Its stated goal is 3 gigawatts of AI data centre capacity by 2030, with the aim of exporting AI capabilities.
“Since 2023, Aramco has achieved $11.3 billion in Technology Realized Value, with a significant portion coming from AI solutions,” said Amin Nasser, Aramco’s president and CEO, as reported by Arab News. He said the partnership lays “the foundation for localizing the AI industry.” Yazeed Al-Humied, PIF’s deputy governor and head of Middle East and North Africa investments, said pooling the portfolios would help talent development, technology and intellectual property.
Customer demand is starting to appear as well. On 21 October, HUMAIN and DataVolt announced a preliminary framework agreement with the AI cloud company Nebius for up to 50 megawatts at their planned campus in NEOM’s Oxagon. That is half of the first 100 megawatts under construction in a 360-megawatt first phase, and capacity is due to come online in stages from the fourth quarter of 2027.
