Saudi Arabia Secures 18,000 Nvidia AI Chips for Mega Data Center

Saudi Arabia is making a significant push to become a global AI leader through its venture Humain, which has secured a deal with Nvidia for 18,000 advanced GB300 Blackwell chips to build a 500-megawatt AI data center aimed at supporting Arabic-language large language models and multimodal AI tools. This move is part of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 to diversify its economy and has been praised as a watershed moment in the global AI chip race, placing the kingdom ahead of major countries like China. Meanwhile, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is showing robust growth in its AI data center business, competing directly with Nvidia and expanding profit margins despite a recent share price decline, highlighting its role as a potential long-term player in the AI chip market. In India, Sarvam AI's release of the Sarvam-M large language model has sparked debate about its real-world impact and adoption, with some critics pointing to low download numbers compared to other open-source models like South Korea's Dia, despite Sarvam-M's competitive multilingual performance. These developments illustrate the growing geopolitical and commercial competition surrounding AI chip technology and sovereign AI capabilities, as countries and companies invest heavily in cutting-edge hardware to support AI innovation. The AI chip industry is becoming highly politicized, with strategic partnerships and national ambitions driving investments from firms like Nvidia and AMD.