Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced that its first Cloud Infrastructure Region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on track to launch by December 2026. The announcement was made during LEAP in Riyadh, where AWS also confirmed an expanded strategic collaboration with HUMAIN, a Public Investment Fund owned company, to support the development of Saudi Arabia first AI Zone. As part of the collaboration, AWS and HUMAIN will make up to 50 megawatts of AI computing capacity available by 2028, providing developers, startups and enterprises with greater access to cloud and artificial intelligence technologies while enabling them to serve end users from data centers located within the Kingdom. More details about the announcement are available at https://go.aws/4gJ39AK.
The expanded partnership will provide AI infrastructure powered by AWS Trainium chips and the latest NVIDIA technologies to support AI training and inference workloads. As AWS preferred AI partner in Saudi Arabia, HUMAIN will also make its ALLAM Arabic large language model available through Amazon Bedrock, allowing organizations to securely access advanced Arabic language AI capabilities through a fully managed generative AI platform. In addition, HUMAIN Fabric, the company AI native data infrastructure and a key component of the HUMAIN ONE generative AI operating system, will become available through AWS Marketplace. AWS stated that the new Cloud Infrastructure Region will provide organizations with additional options for deploying applications locally while benefiting from the company sovereignty by design approach under its AWS Digital Sovereignty Pledge. The Region, first announced in March 2024, represents more than 5.3 billion US dollars in planned cloud infrastructure investment and will expand AWS global infrastructure to 40 Regions worldwide.
According to an IDC report commissioned by AWS, artificial intelligence is expected to contribute approximately 130 billion US dollars to Saudi Arabia economy by 2030. AWS said the new infrastructure will help public and private sector organizations accelerate innovation while providing access to advanced AI services, including Amazon Bedrock. Several organizations, including Abdul Latif Jameel, Almosafer, stc Group and Red Bull Mobile, are expected to run AI workloads on AWS. Regional technology providers including ZainTECH and Accenture are also supporting cloud adoption initiatives. As part of the announcement, stc Group confirmed a strategic collaboration with AWS to accelerate cloud and AI adoption across Saudi Arabia, while ZainTECH signed a multiyear agreement to help organizations adopt AWS solutions and strengthen their security and compliance readiness.
Alongside infrastructure expansion, AWS announced several workforce development initiatives designed to support Saudi Arabia digital economy. Through Amazon Academy, launched in collaboration with Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, AWS aims to provide free training in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, logistics and retail for more than 100,000 Saudi citizens preparing for digital careers. The company is also working with 11 higher education institutions across the Kingdom and, through the AWS Saudi Arabia Women Skills Initiative, plans to train up to 10,000 women at no cost. Across the Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye, AWS has committed to reaching two million people with AI and cloud training by 2030 and has already trained more than 680,000 individuals. The company also announced plans to establish two innovation centers in Saudi Arabia to provide technical mentorship and support for startups and entrepreneurs as part of the country’s broader digital transformation initiatives aligned with Vision 2030.
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