Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as a major centre for artificial intelligence infrastructure. The country’s surplus energy supply and growing investments in technology are supporting this ambition.
Jonathan Ross, co founder and CEO of AI chip company Groq, said Saudi Arabia is well placed to become a net exporter of data. He spoke during an interview at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh.
Ross said, “One of the things that is hard to export is energy. You have to move it, it is physical, it costs money. Electricity, transporting it over transmission lines is very expensive.” He explained that data is much cheaper to move. Ross added, “So since there is plenty of excess energy in the Kingdom, the idea is move the data here, put the compute here, do the computation for AI here, and send the results.”
He said data centres should be located in places where land and energy are not heavily used. According to Ross, the Middle East is the ideal location to build such infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia’s plan aligns with its Vision 2030 strategy. This national programme aims to diversify the economy beyond oil. PwC estimates that the Middle East could gain 320 billion dollars from AI. Saudi Arabia aims to secure a major share of that growth by placing AI at the core of its economic development.
The CEO of Humain, a state backed AI and data centre company working with Groq, has said it wants to become the third largest AI provider in the world behind the United States and China.
Saudi Arabia still faces strong competition. The United Arab Emirates is leading the region in AI progress. PwC expects AI to add 96 billion dollars to the UAE economy by 2030, equal to 13.6 percent of GDP. Saudi Arabia could see 135.2 billion dollars or 12.4 percent of GDP from AI. This would place the kingdom behind its neighbour in global ranking.
There are challenges for Saudi Arabia. Data centres require water for cooling and the country has a hot and dry climate. A shortage of digital skills also remains a concern. The government is working to train citizens for roles in advanced technology.
Despite these challenges, investment continues to grow. Groq is working with Aramco Digital to build what it calls the world’s largest inferencing data centre. The company’s chips are made in New York and are designed for processing AI models.
Groq also supports the Saudi Data and AI Authority in creating a large language model that is trained on local information. Ross said, “It is optimised for interfacing with the kingdom.” He noted that other models do not always provide accurate answers due to limited knowledge of the region.
Countries worldwide are focusing on the value of local data as they adopt AI technologies.
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