Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, and Aramco, a Saudi-owned petroleum and natural gas company headquartered in Dhahran, have announced the closing of a transaction in which Aramco, through a wholly owned subsidiary, has acquired a 49 percent stake in HUMAIN, an artificial intelligence company owned by PIF, with PIF retaining 51 percent ownership.
The transaction involves approximately SAR 9.9 billion (US$ 2.6 billion) in cash contributions from Aramco to HUMAIN in 2026, in addition to AI, compute, and digital assets. Readers will recall that the companies said they were moving in this direction exactly one year ago, when they signed a non-binding term sheet outlining the key terms for Aramco to acquire a significant minority stake in HUMAIN.
In a press release, Aramco and PIF said that the transaction aims to “accelerate HUMAIN’s ambition to build a globally competitive, integrated AI ecosystem spanning the full stack: from data centers and high-performance compute to advanced models, applications, and industry solutions.” Additionally, it will further enable HUMAIN’s plans to develop data center capacity by 2030 and deliver solutions that help the public and private sectors to deploy AI at scale.
Partnering with Aramco in HUMAIN aligns with PIF 2026-2030 strategy, which aims to deepen integration across economic ecosystems, expand opportunities with the private sector, and accelerate the growth of national companies into globally competitive leaders.
“Bringing PIF and Aramco’s AI portfolio of investments together under HUMAIN creates a powerful synergy that fuels talent growth, technological advancement, and intellectual property creation,” said Yazeed A. Al-Humied, Deputy Governor and Head of MENA Investments, PIF. “Fully aligned with PIF’s strategic objectives, this transaction accelerates HUMAIN’s growth into a global leader in the sector, strengthening AI as an enabler of PIF’s six ecosystems and further expanding private sector participation across our portfolio while advancing the development of cutting-edge technologies in Saudi Arabia.”
Amin H. Nasser, President & CEO, Aramco, “The HUMAIN deal is very important to Aramco, building on the company’s long track record of innovation and technology,” adding, “This partnership with PIF strengthens Aramco’s position as a global technology leader and AI powerhouse, while laying the foundation for localizing the AI industry and enabling faster, more integrated, and scalable deployment of AI systems.”
Launched in May 2025, HUMAIN is building full-stack AI capabilities across four core areas: next-generation data centers; hyper-performance infrastructure and cloud platforms; advanced AI models including ALLaM, a multimodal Arabic large language models (LLMs); and transformative AI solutions. Through the deployment of 3 GW of AI data center capacity by 2030, HUMAIN is rapidly scaling to meet growing regional and global demand for AI compute, with the aim of becoming one of the leading exporters of AI globally.