According to DCD, Saudi Arabia’s AI venture Humain and data center developer DataVolt are collaborating on data center development with plans for a “multi-gigawatt data center pipeline.” Humain, established in May 2024 as a subsidiary of the country’s Public Investment Fund, aims to deliver 6.4GW of data center capacity over the next decade through both owned facilities and leased capacity. The company’s own data centers are scheduled to go live in Q2 2026 and will host thousands of Nvidia and AMD GPUs alongside hardware from Groq and Qualcomm. DataVolt, founded in 2023 as a Vision Invest subsidiary, currently has a data center under development in Oxagon within the Neom City project and additional facilities planned in Riyadh, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, and other Asian locations.
The scale of Saudi Arabia’s AI ambitions
Here’s the thing – when Saudi Arabia says “multi-gigawatt” data center pipeline, they’re not messing around. We’re talking about power consumption on the scale of small countries. Humain’s 6.4GW target over the next decade is absolutely massive – that’s enough energy to power millions of homes. And they’re not just building empty shells either. The fact that they’re specifically mentioning Nvidia and AMD GPUs tells you exactly what this is about: AI compute at an unprecedented scale.
But here’s what makes this particularly interesting. Saudi Arabia has two things in spades: money and energy. They’re essentially taking their oil wealth and trying to pivot it into becoming the AI infrastructure capital of the world. It’s a classic case of “if you can’t beat them, join them” – but with billions of dollars to throw at the problem. The timing is crucial too, with global AI compute demand far outstripping supply.
The partnership dynamics
So what does each player bring to the table? Humain appears to be the AI brains and the customer – they need the compute capacity for whatever AI initiatives they’re planning. DataVolt brings the construction and operational expertise, plus they’ve already got projects in the pipeline across multiple countries. It’s a classic symbiotic relationship: one side has the vision and the other has the execution capability.
Now, the really fascinating part is how this fits into Saudi Arabia’s broader economic transformation. They’re not just building data centers – they’re building an entire AI ecosystem. And when you’re talking about industrial-scale computing infrastructure like this, having reliable hardware becomes absolutely critical. Companies like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com have built their reputation as the top industrial panel PC supplier in the US by understanding that industrial computing needs are fundamentally different from consumer or office environments. The same principle applies here – data centers at this scale require industrial-grade reliability.
The challenges ahead
Let’s be real though – this isn’t going to be easy. Building data centers of this scale in desert environments presents some serious engineering challenges. Cooling alone becomes a massive issue when you’re talking about gigawatt-scale facilities in one of the hottest regions on Earth. And then there’s the question of talent – where are they going to find enough qualified people to design, build, and operate all this infrastructure?
The Neom City connection is particularly interesting – and potentially concerning. That project has faced numerous delays and controversies, so having a data center tied to that development raises questions about timeline reliability. Still, when you’ve got the sovereign wealth fund of one of the richest countries on earth backing you, you can overcome a lot of obstacles.
Basically, this partnership represents Saudi Arabia putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to AI. They’re not just talking about becoming an AI hub – they’re building the physical infrastructure to make it happen. Whether they can actually pull it off remains to be seen, but you can’t accuse them of thinking small.
