Saudi Arabia unveils $15B AI investments at LEAP to challenge UAE's tech dominance

Saudi Arabia kicked off its LEAP tech conference with $15 billion in planned investments, including a 250MW AI data center by Together AI and HUMAIN, and expanded partnerships with AWS and xAI. The kingdom aims to become the Gulf's AI hub, competing with the UAE, and its digital economy has grown 69% since 2022. The event drew global tech leaders despite regional instability.

The LEAP conference's opening day featured a 250MW AI data center agreement between Together AI and Saudi-backed HUMAIN, projected to generate over $5 billion in annualized revenue during its first year. AWS separately expanded its HUMAIN partnership to deliver up to 50MW of capacity within Saudi Arabia's inaugural AI Zone by 2028, while Elon Musk's xAI committed to its first overseas data center, starting at 50MW and potentially scaling to 500MW.

Since LEAP's launch in 2022, Saudi Arabia's digital economy has grown from $118 billion to $199 billion, a 69% jump per the kingdom's communications ministry. The event drew 1,800 technology brands and executives from NVIDIA, Google, Meta, and Uber, signaling Riyadh's intensifying rivalry with the UAE for regional AI leadership despite the four-month delay caused by the Iran war.