Saudi Arabia’s PIF signs MoU with Brookfield to launch $2bn investment platform

ALKHOBAR: Saudi Arabia has set its sights on becoming a global artificial intelligence powerhouse, and one company is at the center of that mission.

Humain, launched in May 2025 with backing from the Public Investment Fund, is building what many describe as the Arab world’s most ambitious AI ecosystem.

Unlike firms that focus narrowly on single models, Humain delivers full-stack capabilities, from sovereign data centers to advanced large language models, all designed in and for the Kingdom.

At the heart of this vision is Humain Chat, a consumer app powered by the ALLaM 34B foundation model.

Built as an Arabic-first system, it represents a decisive shift: Instead of adapting foreign technologies, Saudi Arabia is now creating innovation rooted in its own language and culture.

Developing ALLaM 34B was Humain’s first major challenge and its greatest statement of intent. 

The model was trained on more than 500 billion Arabic tokens, making it the largest Arabic language dataset ever used. Independent evaluations have already ranked it as the world’s most advanced Arabic-first AI system.

Yaser Al-Onaizan, deputy CEO and president of data and AI models at Humain, explained why this matters.

“ALLaM is set apart by its deep cultural integration and comprehensive understanding of Arabic nuances, from regional dialects to religious and historical contexts,” he said.

The design choice was not cosmetic. By building the model in Arabic from the ground up, Humain gave it the ability to understand and reflect everyday speech while also handling specialized contexts like finance, government services, and education.

This dual focus allows ALLaM to power Humain Chat for millions of consumers while being robust enough for enterprise deployments.

Humain Chat is more than just a demo of Saudi AI capability. Available for free in the Kingdom on iOS, Android, and web, it is designed to serve more than 400 million Arabic speakers globally.

Users can switch between Arabic and English, dictate in multiple dialects, and even search the web in real time without leaving the app.

“Our model’s real-world adaptability is unmatched,” said Al-Onaizan. “While powering Humain Chat for consumers, it is also enterprise-ready, capable of seamless integration into government services, financial systems, and customer platforms.”

Where Humain differs from most regional players is its scale. The company describes itself as a full-stack AI provider, delivering not just large language models but also infrastructure, cloud platforms, and data governance systems.

This makes it one of the few firms globally attempting to control the entire AI value chain.

Its portfolio includes hyperscale data centers, cloud-native services, and a sovereign data platform capable of managing the full lifecycle from ingestion to visualization.

On top of this sit its models, from ALLaM to advanced voice-enabled systems, and finally consumer and enterprise applications such as Humain Chat.

The company’s ambitions are reinforced by major partnerships.

AWS is investing $5 billion in a new AI Zone in the Kingdom. NVIDIA is working with Humain to build AI factories with hundreds of thousands of graphics processing units.

Qualcomm, AMD, Cisco, and Groq are also aligned with the effort, ensuring Humain has both the software and hardware ecosystem to scale.

One of the biggest challenges in AI is training data, and for Arabic it has always been a limiting factor. High-quality corpora are scarce, fragmented, and inconsistent. Humain chose to tackle this head-on by designing its own data curation and governance pipeline.

“Building advanced Arabic language models presents unique data challenges that we’ve systematically addressed at Humain,” said Al-Onaizan.

“The scarcity of high-quality Arabic training data has historically been a significant barrier. However, we turned this challenge into an opportunity through our innovative approach to data curation and governance, which was a built-from-scratch solution.”

To achieve this, Humain mobilized a network of more than 600 domain experts and 250 evaluators who validated and refined the training sets. The result is a model tuned for accuracy, relevance, and compliance with Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law.

The Humain story is also the Saudi story.

Vision 2030 has made AI a national priority, and Humain reflects that ambition. By combining sovereign control with global partnerships, the Kingdom is positioning itself not just as a user of technology but as a leader shaping its direction.

“We are confident that Saudi Arabia is taking all the necessary steps to become a global AI powerhouse,” said Al-Onaizan. “Our vision aligns strategically with the Kingdom’s ambitious national strategy, where we are not just participants, but we are actively shaping the future of AI.”

This confidence is not without basis. Humain’s rapid growth, global alliances, and independent recognition have already placed it on the map as a serious competitor to established tech giants.

If scale is one pillar of Humain’s strategy, responsibility is the other. The company emphasizes that its infrastructure is hosted entirely in the Kingdom, under national jurisdiction, to ensure sovereignty and trust.

“When we discuss AI deployment at scale, data protection and privacy are not optional considerations, they are fundamental requirements,” said Al-Onaizan.

“At the core of our approach is full compliance with Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law. While we meet all regulatory requirements, our true focus is establishing trust and maintaining the highest standards of data governance.”

This approach is designed to reassure both government and enterprise clients that advanced AI can be deployed without compromising security or cultural values.

Saudi Arabia’s AI ambitions are no longer abstract policy goals. Through Humain, the Kingdom is building an end-to-end ecosystem that combines infrastructure, models, and applications in one stack.

With ALLaM 34B as its foundation and Humain Chat as its first showcase, the company is proving that Arabic-first innovation can set global standards.

The road ahead will be about scale, global expansion, and ensuring that AI speaks not only in Arabic but with the values and vision of the Arab world.

RIYADH: Bahrain’s non-oil re-exports grew 3 percent year on year in July to 63 million Bahraini dinars ($166 million), driven by strong demand from the UAE, which accounted for 35 percent of the total.

Saudi Arabia followed with 21 percent, and Singapore with 13 percent, according to data from the Information and eGovernment Authority cited by the Bahrain News Agency.

Key re-exported items included four-wheel drive vehicles valued at 7 million dinars, gas turbine parts at 4.8 million dinars, and jet turbine engines at 4.5 million dinars.

Analysts note that Bahrain’s expanding logistics sector, along with its strategic location, continues to support growth in re-export activity.

While non-oil exports of national origin dipped slightly by 1 percent to 333 million dinars in July, the country’s trade outlook remains positive. Saudi Arabia led as the top destination for national exports at 24 percent, followed by the US at 12 percent and the UAE at 9 percent.

Raw aluminum alloys topped the list of national exports at 93 million dinars (28 percent), followed by agglomerated iron ores and concentrates at 44 million dinars (13 percent) and non-alloy aluminum wires at 19 million dinars (6 percent).

Imports grew 17 percent to 544 million dinars, led by China (13 percent), Brazil (10 percent), and Australia (9 percent). The most imported goods included non-agglomerated iron ores and concentrates, aluminum oxide, and aircraft engine parts.

Despite a trade deficit of 148 million dinars in July, up from 66 million a year earlier, Bahrain’s economy is set for growth.

The World Bank forecasts GDP growth of 3.5 percent in 2025, up from 3 percent in 2024, driven by completion of BAPCO refinery upgrades and stronger non-oil activity in infrastructure, logistics, fintech, and tourism under Economic Vision 2030. Growth is projected to average 2.9 percent in 2026-27, supported by continued non-oil expansion and the Sitra refinery upgrade.

Overall, Bahrain’s non-oil trade, particularly re-exports, continues to demonstrate resilience and diversification, reflecting the Kingdom’s strategic efforts to expand its economic base beyond hydrocarbons.