Saudi fires up Gulf AI race with $15 billion tech deals at LEAP

LEAP, Saudi’s biggest tech conference, kicked off on Monday with $15 billion worth of planned technology investments and strategic commitments being unveiled, helping make up for lost time after the event was delayed by four months due to the Iran war. San Francisco-based AI cloud platform Together AI signed an agreement with Saudi-backed HUMAIN to build a 250 Megawatt (MW) AI data center in the kingdom. It is expected to yield over $5 billion in gross annualized revenue in its first year. Also notable is Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) expanded partnership with HUMAIN—the key vehicle for Saudi’s AI ambitions which aims to provide up to 50 MW of capacity in the kingdom’s first AI Zone by 2028. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s xAI announced plans to build its first data center outside the U.S., initially