Saudi Arabia’s leading AI company HUMAIN plans to launch a major venture capital fund this year, potentially exceeding its planned $10 billion vehicle, as it seeks to establish the kingdom as a global AI leader.
Buoyed by its early success backing Elon Musk’s xAI ahead of its merger with SpaceX and initial public offering, the VC fund’s ambitions have expanded significantly. It will have offices in the US and Saudi Arabia as well as France and the UK and “will be really large as we want to be able to accelerate the pace of investment,” CEO Tareq Amin said, Semafor reported.
HUMAIN’s $3 billion investment in xAI in February “was a home run,” Amin said in an interview. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which controls HUMAIN along with state oil company Aramco, has disclosed a $26 billion stake in SpaceX.
The AI firm will back companies that commit to using Saudi data centers for some of their compute operations or bringing staff to the country, Amin said. “We don’t do passive investments, that will never happen,” he said. It will also create HUMAIN Limitless, specifically for investing in and supporting AI companies in Saudi Arabia, he said.