Saudi Arabia's Humain lands $667 million to power its AI data centers

Saudi Arabia just put real money behind its AI ambitions. The National Infrastructure Fund and Humain signed two financing agreements worth up to SAR 2.5 billion (about $667 million).

The money will pay for AI computing power and for the electricity infrastructure that data centers need to run.

What happened?

The agreements were signed in Riyadh on Sunday. Attending were Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Public Investment Fund (PIF, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund), Economy and Planning Minister Faisal Alibrahim, who also chairs the National Infrastructure Fund, and Abdulaziz Al-Arifi, governor of the National Development Fund.

The first facility is worth about SAR 1.1 billion ($293.3 million). It will fund graphics processing units (GPUs), the chips that power AI, with an IT load of roughly 25 megawatts.

The second is worth SAR 1.4 billion ($373.3 million). It targets power infrastructure for Humain's data centers in the kingdom, including substations, power transmission and grid connections.

Why does it matter?

This is the first financing deal under the fund's AI data center financing programme. It is also the first stage of a framework agreement.

The power infrastructure is built to support future data center growth of up to one gigawatt of IT load. The aim is to attract data center developers, hyperscale operators (companies running huge cloud facilities) and institutional investors.

Ismail Al-Sallum, CEO of the National Infrastructure Fund, said the deals should trigger investment beyond the fund's own financing. He said the fund's role is to make such projects ready and bankable, based on commercial viability.

Humain CEO Tareq Amin said AI infrastructure has become a cornerstone of the next generation of computing. He said the deals will speed up access to advanced computing and the power to support it.

What came before?

PIF launched Humain in May 2025 to provide AI services, data centers and infrastructure, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In January 2026 at Davos, the fund and Humain announced a non-binding framework of up to SAR 4.5 billion ($1.2 billion). Sunday's deals are its first phase.