Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN),<\/p>\n
and HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia\u2019s newly created company responsible for driving AI innovation across the Kingdom and globally,<\/p>\n
today announced plans to invest $5 billion-plus in a strategic partnership to build a groundbreaking \u201cAI Zone\u201d in the Kingdom.<\/p>\n
This first-of-a-kind AI Zone will bring together multiple innovative capabilities, including dedicated AWS AI infrastructure and servers with world-class semiconductors,<\/p>\n
UltraCluster networks for faster AI training and inference, AWS services like SageMaker and Bedrock,<\/p>\n
and AI application services such as Amazon Q to advance Saudi Arabia\u2019s mission to be a world leader in AI.<\/p>\n
AWS previously announced and is currently building an AWS infrastructure region in Saudi Arabia that will become available in 2026.<\/p>\n
Amazon is investing US$5.3 billion (approx. 19.88 billion Saudi riyal) in Saudi Arabia to develop this new region for AWS.<\/p>\n
The new AI Zone announced today is an additional investment to grow global and local demand for advanced AI services in the Kingdom,<\/p>\n
and is part of AWS\u2019s long-term commitment to bring its world-class infrastructure and services to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
This collaboration aligns with Saudi Arabia\u2019s\u00a0Vision 2030<\/a>\u00a0and builds upon the Kingdom\u2019s\u00a0pledge in 2024<\/a>\u00a0to invest in building an AI-powered economy,<\/p>\n representing a significant step towards realizing Saudi Arabia’s ambitions\u00a0<\/strong>to become a global AI leader.<\/p>\n AWS will bring to Saudi Arabia its advanced server and network infrastructure capabilities,<\/p>\n as well as its artificial intelligence and machine learning services \u2013 including\u00a0Amazon SageMaker AI<\/a>,\u00a0Amazon Bedrock<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Amazon Q<\/a>,<\/p>\n fully managed services for building and scaling generative AI (genAI) applications. With Amazon Bedrock in Saudi Arabia,<\/p>\n businesses and government organizations can access high-performing models from leading AI companies to develop genAI applications with security,<\/p>\n privacy, and responsible AI. Amazon Q is the world\u2019s most capable coding assistant, and also enables organizations to build genAI-powered assistants to answer questions,<\/p>\n provide summaries, generate content, and complete tasks based on enterprise data.<\/p>\n Through this collaboration, HUMAIN plans to develop AI solutions using AWS technologies for its end customers.<\/p>\n Further, HUMAIN will work with AWS on the development of a unified AI agent marketplace, simplifying the discovery,<\/p>\n deployment, and management of AI software for the Saudi Arabia government.<\/p>\n The collaboration also intends to spur the growth of Large Language Models (LLMs), including Arabic Large Language Models\u00a0(ALLaM)<\/a>,<\/p>\n while spearheading wide adoption of AI in organizations and industries across the Gulf Region and beyond.<\/p>\n Key sectors, such as government, energy, healthcare, and education, will be able to accelerate their transformation,<\/p>\n envisioning AI-powered tools that can personalize learning experiences for students, help provide\u00a0early disease diagnoses<\/a>\u00a0for patients,<\/p>\n and unleash productivity across core upstream and downstream processes for government administration.<\/p>\n Use cases such as these will be accelerated via the\u00a0AWS Generative AI Innovation Center<\/a>,<\/u><\/p>\n in partnership with HUMAIN, enabling customers \u2013 from the fastest-growing startups and largest enterprises,<\/p>\n to government agencies \u2013 to amplify genAI roadmaps and workloads, leading to equitable and efficient delivery of vital services for greater societal impact.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thank AWS for doubling down on their long-term partnership with the Kingdom.<\/p>\n This new collaboration with HUMAIN lays the foundation for the intelligent era, accelerates our innovation momentum,<\/p>\n grows our talent, and reinforces Saudi Arabia\u2019s position as a global partner of choice in the age of AI,\u201d said His Excellency Eng.<\/p>\n Abdullah Alswaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n AWS and HUMAIN will also work together to advance an AI-powered startup sector in the Kingdom,<\/p>\n providing access to the broadest and deepest set of cloud technology tools and programs, including\u00a0AWS Activate<\/a>,<\/p>\n and helping Saudi Arabia\u2019s most ambitious founders and entrepreneurs scale their businesses.<\/p>\n AWS has helped more than 330,000 startups globally bring their business ideas to life. Its scalable, secure,<\/p>\n low-cost cloud solutions and AI-powered services, combined with HUMAIN\u2019s deep support network, will help supercharge Saudi\u2019s startup scene.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0MAGNiTT<\/a>, Saudi Arabia startups secured US$750 million venture capital funding in 2024,<\/p>\n the highest share of capital deployed across the Middle East and North Africa last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThis collaboration to build an AI Zone in Saudi Arabia will enable innovations across all industries using AWS\u2019s advanced AI offerings,<\/p>\n and reflects our commitment to support Saudi Arabia\u2019s Vision 2030,\u201d said Matt Garman, CEO, Amazon Web Services.<\/p>\n \u201cTogether, we will empower customers with cost-effective and secure cloud technologies,<\/p>\n fuel innovation and economic growth across the nation, and enable HUMAIN to appeal to customers globally.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As part of its long-term commitment to fast-track cloud adoption in Saudi Arabia, AWS is scaling its training<\/p>\n and certification programs focused on genAI skills-building in line with the Kingdom\u2019s Vision 2030 digital transformation goals.<\/p>\n Working with Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF), AWS has committed to train 100,000 citizens from the Kingdom in cloud computing and genAI,<\/p>\n focusing on the two newest AWS genAI certifications: AWS AI Practitioner and AWS Machine Learning Engineer Associate Certifications.<\/p>\n Training will be delivered by the\u00a0Amazon Academy<\/a>. Launched in 2023, the Amazon Academy is the largest talent development program of its kind in the Middle East.<\/p>\n It provides transformative training and certifications, free of cost to participants, to elevate in-demand competencies and equip Saudi talent for jobs of the future.<\/p>\n The program is designed to empower the next generation of Saudi youth, entrepreneurs,<\/p>\n and professionals at any stage of their career to achieve success across in-demand skills, such as cloud computing, logistics, and leadership.<\/p>\n In addition, to help accelerate Saudi Arabia\u2019s goal of empowering women to increase participation in the workforce,<\/p>\n AWS in 2024 also launched an upskilling program, \u201cAWS Saudi Arabia Women\u2019s Skills Initiative,\u201d in partnership with Skillsoft Global Knowledge.<\/p>\n AWS has committed to train 10,000 women on AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials, at no charge, through classroom trainings with AWS-certified professionals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Saudi Arabia is forecast to hold the lion\u2019s share of AI\u2019s estimated economic impact across the Middle East in the coming years.<\/p>\n According to PwC, AI will contribute\u00a0$130 billion<\/a>\u00a0to Saudi\u2019s economy by 2030, comprising more than 40 percent of the estimated $320 billion of AI value for the entire Middle East.<\/p>\n The Kingdom is also at the forefront of a regional drive to transform both public sector services and enterprises with AI-powered innovation built in the cloud.<\/p>\n PwC estimates that nearly\u00a070 percent<\/a>\u00a0of Middle East companies plan to migrate most of their operations to the cloud within the next year,<\/p>\n while a 2023 report by Telecom Advisory Services predicts public cloud adoption to unlock\u00a0US$733 billion<\/a>\u00a0in economic value by 2033 across the Middle East and North Africa.<\/p>\n “HUMAIN\u2019s partnership with AWS is a pivotal moment in Saudi Arabia’s journey to become a global leader in AI,\u201d said Tareq Amin, CEO of HUMAIN.<\/p>\n \u201cBy leveraging AWS\u2019s world-class cloud infrastructure and AI expertise and HUMAIN\u2019s full-stack AI capabilities,<\/p>\n we are creating an offering that will attract global investment and talent, thereby driving our digital transformation agenda forward.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world\u2019s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud.<\/p>\n AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 240 fully featured services for compute,<\/p>\n storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, media,<\/p>\n and application development, deployment, and management from 114 Availability Zones within 36 geographic regions,<\/p>\n with announced plans for 16 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions in Chile, New Zealand, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,<\/p>\n Taiwan, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Millions of customers\u2014including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises,<\/p>\n and leading government agencies\u2014trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit\u00a0aws.amazon.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention,<\/p>\n commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking.<\/p>\n Amazon strives to be Earth\u2019s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth\u2019s Best Employer, and Earth\u2019s Safest Place to Work.<\/p>\n Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS,<\/p>\n Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios,<\/p>\n and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit\u00a0amazon.com\/about<\/a>\u00a0and follow @AmazonNews.<\/p>\nFueling Saudi Arabia\u2019s vibrant startup sector with AI-powered innovation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Accelerating talent development for a vibrant Saudi tech industry<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Supercharging HUMAIN\u2019s AI ambitions<\/strong><\/h3>\n
About Amazon Web Services<\/strong><\/h3>\n
About Amazon<\/strong><\/h3>\n