Saudi Arabia's ambition is to turn AI into new oil, exporting it to the world.

(Dan Tri) - Saudi Arabia's ambition is not just to diversify its economy. They want to turn computing power into the "new oil", use cheap energy to export data and gain 6% of the global AI market share.

In August 2024, while in Dubai celebrating his birthday, Tareq Amin, a senior executive of the national oil company Aramco, received a call at 2 a.m. The person on the other end was an aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, asking him to fly to Riyadh immediately for an urgent meeting. The meeting was not about oil but about the national AI strategy.

That midnight call not only interrupted a leader's vacation, it also symbolized Saudi Arabia's urgency and determination in the global technology race.

The kingdom, once known as an oil giant, is now betting on a future where it exports not just crude, but also an even more precious “resource” of the digital age: computing power.

The move is part of an ambitious plan called "Vision 2030," a strategic roadmap to diversify the economy , reduce dependence on oil and turn Saudi Arabia into a technological powerhouse.

As the oil age draws to a close, Gulf states are pouring billions of dollars into AI infrastructure, hoping to turn “computing power” into the new energy export of the 21st century (Photo: New York Times).

Computing power is the new oil

“Computing power is the new oil,” says Mohammed Soliman, a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington. This iconic phrase sums up the transformation strategy of the entire Gulf region. If oil fueled the 20th-century industrial revolution, then AI computing power and data will define the 21st.

Saudi Arabia finds itself in a unique position to realize this vision. Few countries can match the three key factors needed to run the massive, power-hungry data centers that power AI: cheap energy, abundant capital, and vast land.

Jonathan Ross, CEO of Groq, an American AI chipmaker, is keen to point out the economic advantages of this strategy. “One of the hardest things to export is energy. You have to transport it, which is expensive,” he says. “Data is cheap to move.”

Saudi Arabia's idea is clear: instead of exporting physical energy, they will import data, use their abundant energy to process, compute AI, and then export the resulting artificial intelligence to the world .

Humain - Aramco of the AI ​​era

To realize this grand plan, Crown Prince Mohammed established Humain in May, a state-owned company that has been described as the "Aramco of the AI ​​age."

Backed by the nearly $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund (PIF), Humain is on a mission to unify AI initiatives, build infrastructure, and put Saudi Arabia on the tech map. Tareq Amin, the man who took the 2 a.m. call, was appointed CEO of Humain.

Humain’s goal is incredibly bold: to handle about 6% of global AI workloads in the next few years, up from less than 1% today. If successful, Saudi Arabia could rise to third place in the world in AI computing power, behind only the US and China.

A series of huge projects are underway. Three large data center complexes are being built, with operating costs for AI tasks said to be at least 30% cheaper than in the US.

In the northwest near the Red Sea, a $5 billion data center is being planned, powerful enough to serve programmers as far away as Europe. On the opposite shore, another megaproject is targeting Asian and African markets. Companies like DataVolt and Aramco Digital are partnering with tech giants like Groq to build “the world’s largest AI inference data center.”

Walking the tightrope between the US and China

Riyadh’s ambitions place it in the middle of the most intense geopolitical tug-of-war today: the US-China tech war. At the heart of every AI data center is advanced semiconductor chips, and for now, the US holds the keys to this technology.

Saudi Arabia is in deep talks with US tech giants. The leaders of OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Intel were all present at the “Davos in the Desert” conference.

Humain has signed chip deals with Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm, and is partnering with Amazon to build infrastructure. There are even talks about providing computing power to Elon Musk's xAI company.

But Washington has been hesitant. US officials are concerned about Riyadh’s deepening ties with Beijing, and they worry that advanced US chip technology could be smuggled to China. This has delayed final approval of billions of dollars worth of chip deals.

Meanwhile, Chinese companies such as DeepSeek have been using Aramco's data centers. Chinese researchers are also said to have access to supercomputers at the kingdom's top universities.

Prince Mohammed has so far tried to maintain a balance, not choosing sides. Some US officials believe it might be better to let US and Chinese technology compete directly on Saudi Arabia's "home turf," turning it into a unique parallel technology arena.

Saudi Arabia is being touted as the new hot spot for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure thanks to its huge energy surplus (Photo: The American Bazaar).

Regional race and internal challenges

Saudi Arabia’s ambitions are not taking place in a vacuum. Its biggest competitor is its neighbor, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is making strong strides and is now considered a regional leader in AI applications.

PwC predicts that by 2030, AI could contribute 13.6% to the UAE’s GDP, compared to 12.4% for Saudi Arabia. If this prediction comes true, Saudi Arabia could rank fourth globally in AI capabilities, behind the UAE.

In addition, the kingdom also faces significant internal challenges. Saudi Arabia is seriously lacking AI experts and high-tech human resources.

While the government is pushing training programs and issuing golden visas to attract talent, building a pool of local experts takes time. In addition, data centers consume huge amounts of electricity and water for cooling, a difficult problem for a country with one of the hottest and driest climates in the world.

To address some of the concerns, Saudi Arabia is looking at innovative models such as “data ambassador zones,” where foreign companies can operate under their home country’s laws, reducing security and legal hurdles.

Despite the skepticism and challenges, there is no denying the scale and speed of Saudi Arabia’s transformation. From the outskirts of Riyadh to the Red Sea coast, data center construction sites are humming.

Billions of dollars are being poured into not only infrastructure but also into developing large language models (LLMs) in Arabic, to create localized AI products that better serve the region.

“They may not achieve all their goals,” said Vivek Chilukuri, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, “but they will certainly go much further than the skeptics think.”

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/kinh-doanh/a-rap-xe-ut-tham-vong-bien-ai-thanh-dau-mo-moi-xuat-khau-ra-the-gioi-20251028154803526.htm