Public Investment Fund And Google Cloud To Launch Global AI Hub In Saudi Arabia

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Google Cloud have announced a strategic partnership to create a global artificial intelligence (AI) hub in Saudi Arabia. The hub, which will be located near Dammam in the Eastern Province, aims to position the kingdom as a key AI destination for businesses and startups. 

The initiative, which was signed at the eight edition of the Future Investment Initiative in October last year, seeks to develop the workforce in Saudi Arabia with AI training for millions of students and professionals. 

As a result of this partnership, customers will be able to make use of Google Cloud’s technology to support growth across industries, as well as increase capacity for the delivery of AI applications. Businesses and their end consumers can expect to benefit from better quality AI applications and data services, delivered faster, locally. 

The partnership is also set to feature joint research on Arabic language models and AI applications specific to Saudi Arabia. Enabled by Google Cloud’s years of investment and leadership in custom silicon, this highperformance, purpose-built infrastructure will include the newest tensor processing unit (TPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerators as well as the Vertex AI platform, which is Google Cloud’s specialized development platform that enables customers to build generative AI applications. 

The collaboration between PIF and Google Cloud will also see work being done on integrating Arabic datasets into Google’s generative AI model, Gemini. Local businesses, researchers, and developers can then integrate these models into their systems to create advanced Arabic language AI agents and applications. 

In a statement, HE Yasir Al- Rumayyan, Governor of PIF, said, “We are delighted to welcome this new Google Cloud AI hub to Saudi Arabia. This partnership demonstrates PIF’s dedication to fostering an AI-friendly environment through investments in human capital and technology, upskilling thousands with cuttingedge tools to support our sustainable and innovative infrastructure goals. Saudi Arabia is a prime location for global tech partners as PIF brings both sector expertise and a long-term approach to investment.” 

Ruth Porat, President and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, commented, “This strategic partnership will accelerate adoption of AI in the local language and across industries — including healthcare, retail, financial services and more — for enterprises and startups in Saudi Arabia, across the Middle East, Africa and around the world. As part of Saudi Arabia’s rich technology ecosystem, we aim to create highly-skilled jobs for Saudis and opportunities for global businesses to fuel growth through cloud adoption.” 

Preliminary research commissioned by Google Cloud and conducted by global tech policy advisory firm Access Partnership estimates that the AI hub could contribute US$71 billion to Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product (GDP) over eight years, which, in turn, can generate thousands of highly skilled direct and indirect job opportunities. The new hub also builds on Google Cloud’s existing presence in the Kingdom, including the Dammam cloud region, which launched in 2023 as part of its global network.