Saudi Arabia's Humain picks Goldman Sachs to advise on data centre financing, sources say

By Federico Maccioni

DUBAI, May 19 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia-backed artificial quality institution Humain has picked Goldman Sachs to counsel connected a financing bundle to physique information centres successful the kingdom that ‌could beryllium worthy astatine slightest 20 cardinal riyals, 2 sources with cognition of the substance ‌told Reuters, arsenic the steadfast races to grow capableness amid a determination AI push.

The determination illustrates however Saudi Arabia, similar Gulf neighbours ​Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, is accelerating its AI build-out to capitalise connected surging planetary request for computing power.

The state is besides banking connected inexpensive vigor to powerfulness information centres - a almighty lure for hyperscalers specified arsenic Google, Microsoft and Meta that are driving AI adoption.

Humain hired the U.S. slope precocious arsenic it seeks to ‌fund information centres and GPU chips ⁠for 2 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, astir a 3rd of its people by 2034, the sources said, requesting anonymity arsenic the substance is not public.

The concern could necessitate financing ⁠of astatine slightest 20 cardinal riyals ($5.33 billion), the 2 sources said.

The information centres volition beryllium developed successful the Riyadh area, according to 1 of the sources.

Humain and Goldman Sachs declined to comment. The Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns ​Humain, referred ​Reuters' queries to the AI company.

Saudi Arabia, the world's ​top lipid exporter, is seeking to diversify distant ‌from hydrocarbon gross by investing tens of billions of dollars successful infrastructure, transportation, tourism and technology, including AI.

DIVERSIFYING TOWARDS AI

The determination comes adjacent arsenic the Iran warfare has sparked uncertainty astir section investments aft information centres belonging to Amazon unreality portion AWS were deed by Iranian drone strikes successful the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

AWS is investing billions of dollars successful Saudi Arabia and has teamed up with Humain to physique ‌a caller "AI zone" successful the kingdom.

The International Energy Agency estimates ​a planetary cumulative concern successful information centres of $3.9 trillion betwixt 2026 ​and 2030, a sum that is "too ample ​to beryllium funded solely from the equilibrium sheets of AI companies," it said successful ‌a study past month.

The PIF, which has been ​spearheading the translation successful Saudi, ​recently retooled its strategy, moving distant from immoderate investments, including scaling backmost alleged giga-projects successful the kingdom.

The PIF, which has been spearheading Saudi Arabia's economical transformation, precocious retooled its strategy, scaling backmost ​some giga-projects successful the kingdom.

Established past ‌year, Humain has secured respective agreements including deals with xAI, successful which it is simply a ​minority shareholder, and Blackstone-backed AirTrunk for information centre projects successful the country.