Tesla and X (formally Twitter) CEO, Elon Musk has announced his plans to build a 500 MW artificial intelligence (AI) data center in Saudi Arabia in partnership with HUMAIN, the kingdom’s state-backed AI venture, and NVIDIA as the principal chip supplier.
Musk revealed the plan while attending the U.S.–Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C on Wednesday, alongside NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, during a joint appearance ahead of scheduled remarks from US President Donald Trump, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The project is part of Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to become a global AI hub and strengthens xAI’s push to expand its computing infrastructure.
The 500MW facility would significantly expand xAI’s compute resources at a time when leading AI developers are racing to secure chip supplies and infrastructure capacity. The partnership reflects deepening ties between US technology leaders and Saudi Arabia’s multibillion-dollar bid to position itself at the forefront of global AI innovation.
“We will work closely with friends and partners like those in this room to build the largest, most powerful, most innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” said US President Donald Trump as quoted by AP News.
“We are confident that our economic partnership will witness unprecedented growth in the coming years,” said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as quoted by Anadolu Ajansi.
Since departing from Open AI, Musk has redirected equity into xAI with a US$ 15 billion investment.
With its chatbot Grok, xAI is competing directly with OpenAI and Anthropic for advanced model development, and investor funding which HUMAIN had agreed to provide xAI to the tune of several gigawatts of computing capacity.
HUMAIN is collaborating with NVIDIA and other suppliers to secure the hardware required for Saudi Arabia’s growing AI industry. The kingdom is currently facing restrictions on purchasing advanced chips from the US but the Trump administration is preparing to approve sales of high-end semiconductors to HUMAIN, potentially clearing a major hurdle for the new data center development.