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RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Air has signed a global distribution agreement with Amadeus to expand its international footprint, connecting to more than 190 travel markets ahead of its commercial launch. 

The deal links the Public Investment Fund-owned carrier to one of the world’s largest networks of travel sellers via the Amadeus Travel Platform, boosting its retail capabilities and global reach. 

The partnership is expected to support the Kingdom’s National Aviation Strategy, which targets doubling passenger capacity to 330 million annually from over 250 global destinations and increasing cargo handling to 4.5 million tonnes by the end of this decade. 

Announced in 2023 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Riyadh Air is expected to contribute over $20 billion to the non-oil gross domestic product and create more than 200,000 direct and indirect jobs. 

In a statement, Vincent Coste, chief commercial officer of the airline, said: “Partnering with Amadeus gives us the global reach, distribution power, and retailing capabilities needed to support our goal of flying to over 100 destinations by 2030.”

He added: “This partnership is not only about enabling seamless travel experiences, but also about contributing to the broader national vision of economic diversification, tourism growth, and enhanced global connectivity.” 

The agreement includes future distribution of Riyadh Air’s New Distribution Capability content, enabling the airline to offer more dynamic and personalized products. It will give Riyadh Air greater control over its indirect sales strategy as it builds toward full operations, according to a press release. 

“Amadeus brings not only global reach, but also advanced retailing, merchandising, and data-driven tools that will help Riyadh Air differentiate itself on the global stage,” said Maher Koubaa, executive vice president of the travel unit and managing director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at Amadeus. 

He added: “We are excited to support Riyadh Air’s contribution to Vision 2030 and the Kingdom’s aspirations to become a global tourism and travel leader.” 

Riyadh Air plans to launch a new international destination every two months once operations begin, as it prepares to take delivery of its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the airline’s CEO Tony Douglas told Bloomberg in June.

The carrier, which requires two aircraft to operate a round-trip route, is awaiting delivery of its initial jets to commence services.

Four Dreamliners are currently in various stages of assembly at Boeing’s facility in Charleston, South Carolina, with operations expected to begin once the first two are delivered. 

In addition to its Boeing orders, Riyadh Air announced at the Paris Air Show in June that it will purchase up to 50 Airbus A350 long-range aircraft, with deliveries expected to start in 2030.

The airline has also placed orders for 60 Airbus A321neo narrowbody jets and up to 72 Boeing 787s, including options.

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has become the first country in the region to host OpenAI’s newly released publicly available models through a deployment announced by HUMAIN and Groq.

The gpt-oss-120B and gpt-oss-20B models are operated on Groq’s high-speed inference infrastructure located within HUMAIN’s sovereign data centers in the Kingdom. 

The move is part of broader efforts to localize advanced artificial intelligence infrastructure, aligning with national regulatory and data sovereignty requirements. Saudi Arabia’s deployment of OpenAI’s open-source models within domestic infrastructure supports a wider strategy to diversify its economy and position itself as a key player in global AI.

Under Vision 2030, the Kingdom envisions a digital economy powered by AI, investing heavily in sovereign compute infrastructure to support emerging markets across Africa and Asia.

HUMAIN, a company backed by the Public Investment Fund, said the deployment will enable Saudi-based developers, researchers, and enterprises to access AI tools that were previously limited by infrastructure or compliance constraints. 

Groq, a US-based company specializing in AI inference hardware, provides a custom-built processing platform designed to deliver consistent, high-speed performance. 

HUMAIN CEO Tareq Amin described the development as a step forward in achieving technological self-reliance. 

“With the deployment of OpenAI’s most powerful open models, hosted right here inside the Kingdom, Saudi developers, researchers, and enterprises now have direct access to the global frontier of AI — fully aligned with our national regulations and data laws,” he said. 

The company claims that the gpt-oss-120B model operates at more than 500 tokens per second, while the gpt-oss-20B exceeds 1,000 tokens per second on its platform. 

The establishment of HUMAIN by PIF in May, backed by commitments from Nvidia, AMD, Cisco, and Amazon Web Services, illustrates this push, with multi‑billion‑dollar agreements to expand local AI compute capacity, data centers, and foundational models. 

The infrastructure is positioned as fully sovereign, meaning all data handling complies with Saudi regulations. 

This could be significant for organizations in the public and private sectors that require local hosting of data-intensive applications. The companies did not disclose commercial terms or usage projections. 

Groq CEO Jonathan Ross said the partnership expands the company’s reach into the Middle East. 

“Our partnership with HUMAIN gives us a powerful regional and globally central presence in one of the fastest-growing AI ecosystems on the planet,” Ross said. 

The announcement builds on a partnership first disclosed in May and aligns with Saudi Arabia’s national strategy to become a competitive player in global AI development. 

HUMAIN had previously stressed its ambition to develop AI capabilities across infrastructure, foundational models, and sector-specific applications.