Gulf states land major AI deals as Trump tours region with tech CEOs

US tech giants are set to achieve big deals with Gulf States amid US President Donald Trump's regional tour, which has already seen major investment commitments from Saudi Arabia.

Trump's tour, which began on Tuesday, was joined by major tech leaders including Open AI CEO Sam Altman, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to Newsweek.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are set to secure major deals from US tech firms, according to Bloomberg, in a bid to strengthen the AI sector in both countries, as well as US dominance in the sector.

Saudi Arabia's Humain is set to get the bulk of the deals, with Bloomberg reporting that the company would receive hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips for its operations, while chipmaker AMD will provide chips for data centres.

Additionally, US tech venture Global AI is set to agree on collaboration plans with Humain, and Amazon will invest $5 billion in an "AI zone" in Saudi Arabia alongside Humain.

Cisco will also be working with the company to help build the country's AI infrastructure. Cisco is the world's biggest provider of networking equipment.

 The investments in Humain come two days after the company's official announcement on Monday, with the Public Investment Fund (PIF)-owned company set to "operate and invest across the artificial intelligence value chain as a unified operating company".

In a press statement released on Monday the PIF said the company would "provide a comprehensive range of AI services, products and tools, including next-generation data centers, AI infrastructure and cloud capabilities, and advanced AI models and solutions," and "offer one of the world's most powerful multimodal Arabic large language models".

Alongside US-Saudi economic deals, which included Trump's Tuesday announcement of $600 billion in Saudi investment in the US, including $142 billion in arms sales, the UAE is also set to expand its tech sector.

Cisco is also set to make investments in UAE AI firm G42, with negotiations underway between the US and the UAE over the import of 500,000 Nvidia chips into the country every year to beef up the sector, with one fifth going to G42. Open AI is also considering building a data centre in the UAE.

Other US tech tech heads that joined Trump on his regional tour include Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk, Alphabet and Google President Ruth Porat, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp.

The news of AI investments in the two countries comes as both have attempted to build their own AI sectors.

Saudi Arabia's PIF has been looking to invest more in AI in the country, hosting discussions with venture capital firm Adreessen Horowitz in 2024 to establish an AI fund worth $40 billion.

In 2023, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE were reported to have bought thousands of Nvidia chips in a bid to an AI industrial base in both countries.