- Project Overview: Nvidia and Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI announced that a large Saudi Arabian data center will count xAI as its first customer. The facility will be equipped with ~600,000 Nvidia GPUs.
- Event: The announcement took place at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Elon Musk in attendance, alongside President Trump.
- Background:
- The project builds on a May partnership, when Nvidia committed to providing 500 megawatts of chips to Saudi Arabia’s Humain.
- Humain is owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund and was launched earlier this year.
- The initiative reflects Nvidia’s push into “sovereign AI”, encouraging countries to build AI data centers for national security and cultural reasons.
- Other Partners:
- AMD: Will supply Instinct MI450 GPUs, potentially consuming 1 gigawatt of power by 2030.
- Qualcomm: Will provide AI200 and AI250 chips, deploying 200 megawatts worth.
- Cisco: Supplying additional infrastructure for the facility.
- Significance:
- The data center is a major example of national-scale AI infrastructure.
- Nvidia sees this as a strategic market beyond traditional hyperscalers.
- Musk and Huang’s involvement underscores strong ties between AI, private tech, and U.S.-Saudi economic cooperation.
- Colorful Moment: Musk joked about scaling the data center 1,000 times larger, calling it “eight bazillion, trillion dollars.”