Tareq Amin’s $3B xAI Investment Deepens Saudi Arabia’s AI Ambitions

Tareq Amin, the CEO of Saudi Arabia’s largest AI company, Humain, has been busy since taking the reins of the Kingdom’s national AI program last year. His latest move: a $3 billion investment in Elon Musk’s xAI. The investment was made during xAI’s $20 billion fundraising round in January, Humain announced today (Feb. 18). The promotion came just weeks before xAI’s merger with Musk’s SpaceX earlier this month, as Musk consolidates his AI, telecommunications and space ambitions ahead of a much-anticipated IPO.

It was founded in 2025 by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and is supported by Saudi Arabia’s largest investment fund, the Public Investment Fund. Humain sits at the center of the Kingdom’s drive to diversify its economy beyond oil. A key part of that mandate: building an AI infrastructure at home.

The xAI stake is the latest example of Humain’s ability to “capitalize on exceptional opportunities where long-term vision, technical excellence and execution meet,” Amin said in a statement. Amin, who once led Aramco Digital and that of Japan Rakuten Mobilehas spent the past few months striking blockbuster partnerships with US tech heavyweights, including Nvidia, AMD, Cisco, Amazon Web Services again Groq (not XAI’s chatbot Grok).

Humain did not respond to The Observer’s requests for comment.

Many of the partnerships focus on expanding Saudi Arabia’s data center footprint and computing capacity. A joint venture with AMD and Cisco, for example, aims to build a domestic AI infrastructure capable of powering one gigawatt.

xAI’s partnership with Humain dates back to November, when the companies unveiled plans for a 500-megawatt data center in Saudi Arabia. The facility—xAI’s first outside the US—will work with Nvidia chips and roll out the company’s Grok models across the Kingdom.

The deepening of Humain’s relationship with xAI underscores a broader re-alignment in global AI alliances, with Gulf states emerging as key funding providers and infrastructure hubs for American engineers. In November, AI company Humain and the United Arab Emirates, G42, has received US approval to acquire up to 35,000 advanced AI chips each, marking a sharp reversal from previous semiconductor export limits.

Some regional players are also forming close links with US firms. G42 received a $1.5 billion investment Microsoft and is set to help develop Stargate UAE, an AI computing cluster in Abu Dhabi to be used by OpenAI and Oracle.

Emirati-backed MGX participated in major fundraising rounds for xAI, OpenAI and Anthropic, while Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund earlier this week joined Anthropic’s new $380 billion Series G financing—further strengthening the Middle East’s growing influence on the future of AI.