{"id":433562,"date":"2026-02-19T05:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T05:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433562\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T05:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T05:14:08","slug":"saudi-arabias-ai-venture-humain-invests-3bn-in-elon-musks-xai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433562\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia\u2019s AI venture Humain invests $3bn in Elon Musk\u2019s xAI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Simply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest &#8212; delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia\u2019s state-owned AI company Humain has invested $3bn into Elon Musk\u2019s xAI, deepening the partnership between the tech billionaire and the country as it seeks to become a global AI hub. <\/p>\n<p>Humain announced on Wednesday it contributed a significant part of the $20bn raised by xAI in its last funding round in January, which completed shortly before Musk merged the AI start-up with his rocketmaker SpaceX to create a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/8ee76f65-74d9-4679-a2b0-cd8fc3721a8d\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$1.25tn business<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The Riyadh-based group said its investment made it a \u201csignificant minority shareholder\u201d in xAI, with its holdings subsequently converted into SpaceX shares.<\/p>\n<p>The investment comes as part of the country\u2019s multibillion-dollar push to diversify its economy and pursue its ambitions to become a global AI hub, underpinned by data centre development and new AI models. <\/p>\n<p>Humain, which is funded by Saudi\u2019s Public Investment Fund, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/2082b1e5-e571-42a5-96b6-e7d5c2977afa\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">launched last year<\/a> by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as Riyadh\u2019s prime vehicle to drive the kingdom\u2019s strategy and investment. <\/p>\n<p>It first partnered with xAI in November last year, committing to develop more than 500 megawatts of new data centre capacity and to roll out xAI\u2019s Grok chatbot in Saudi Arabia. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cxAI\u2019s trajectory, further strengthened by its acquisition by SpaceX, one of the largest technology mergers on record, represents the kind of high-impact platform we seek to support with significant capital,\u201d said Tareq Amin, Humain\u2019s chief executive, on Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p>Its investment could result in a financial windfall for the group, with SpaceX aiming for an initial public offering as early as June. The IPO is expected to raise as much as $50bn, which would make it the largest flotation of all time, exceeding the $29bn raised by Saudi Aramco in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Oil-rich Gulf nations have been investing heavily in AI as they seek to diversify their economies. That has made state-backed funds in the region a vital source of capital for Silicon Valley AI groups, whose demand for investment to fuel their growth is voracious. <\/p>\n<p>xAI\u2019s rivals including OpenAI and Anthropic have both raised large sums from investors in the Gulf, while a number of smaller groups building AI infrastructure, such as chipmaker Groq, have also forged partnerships. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest &#8212; delivered directly to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-433562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}