The National Infrastructure Fund (Infra) signed two financing agreements worth up to SAR 2.5 billion (about $667 million) with HUMAIN, Arab News reported. Infra is a Saudi state fund. HUMAIN is the Saudi AI company owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The money will cover two things AI data centres need: chips and power. The first facility (up to SAR 1.1 billion, or $293.3 million) will fund the purchase and deployment of GPUs, representing about 25 MW of IT load. The second (up to SAR 1.4 billion, or $373.3 million) will finance substations, transmission infrastructure, and grid connections for HUMAIN’s AI data centres. That grid work is designed for future data centre development with up to 1 GW of IT capacity, so it’s meant to attract developers, hyperscalers, and institutional investors.
The two sides signed the deals in Riyadh on 8 November. Present were PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Minister of Economy and Planning Faisal bin Fadhil Alibrahim, and Abdulaziz Alarifi of the National Development Fund. They’re the first transactions under Infra’s AI Data Center Financing Program. It’s unclear whether the facilities are loans, what their terms are, or which sites they’ll fund.
Infra’s CEO, Esmail bin Mohammed Alsallom, describes the fund’s role as strengthening “project readiness and bankability”, with commercial viability guiding where its capital goes.
Through these agreements, we aim to unlock investment well beyond Infra’s own commitment.
Esmail bin Mohammed Alsallom, CEO, National Infrastructure Fund
In January, Infra and HUMAIN announced a non-binding framework at Davos covering up to SAR 4.5 billion ($1.2 billion) for up to 250 MW of AI data centre capacity. Sabq calls these deals the first phase of that framework. The financing also follows Aramco’s purchase of a 49% stake in HUMAIN, completed on 1 November, with PIF keeping 51%.
Arab News says the deals aim to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s position as a regional AI hub. HUMAIN is also planning a 50MW AI Zone alongside AWS’s Saudi cloud region. Its own target is far bigger: 3 GW of AI data centre capacity by 2030, which puts the 25 MW of GPUs funded here in perspective as an early step.
