HUMAIN, a newly launched subsidiary owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), announced plans to deploy 500MW of AI infrastructure powered by AMD hardware, while also revealing a supply deal for 18,000 Blackwell GPUs.

On 12 May, the Saudi Arabian government launched HUMAIN to offer advanced AI models and applications, including the development of an Arabic-language large language model (LLM). To achieve this goal, HUMAIN entered a strategic partnership with AMD, investing up to US$10Bn to establish 500MW of generative AI processing capabilities, with facilities to be built in both Saudi Arabia and the USA. Additionally, HUMAIN announced a separate strategic partnership and supply deal with NVIDIA worth an estimated US$857M. Under the supply deal’s first phase of deployment, HUMAIN will import 18,000 Blackwell GPUs to power a single supercomputer at a data centre in Saudi Arabia.

Announcements regarding the development of new generative AI and data centres around the world are becoming increasingly prevalent, indicating significant interest in securing local databases and centres for security and economic incentives. The abovementioned development and others like it are expected to lead to rising demand for and interest in metals associated with high-end chip production, including gallium, germanium, and tantalum. However, the geopolitically charged environment threatens the stability of these critical material supply chains.

In response to EU and US restrictions on IP and technology, China has limited raw material exports, many of which it controls the majority of the market for as a leading refiner. However, investments into the semiconductor sector outside China are not expected to slow, with reshoring efforts underpinned by a growing urge to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China and improve domestic security.