In a bold move reflecting Saudi Arabia’s rapidly accelerating digital transformation, tech company HUMAIN is preparing to launch “Allam” - a foundational artificial intelligence model developed and trained entirely within the Kingdom.
Far from being just another addition to the world of large language models, Allam represents a clear statement from the Arab world: it has the capacity to innovate, build, and compete in this critical field on its own terms.
In an exclusive interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, HUMAIN CEO Tareq Amin revealed that the model will debut at the end of August. Allam, he explained, is built from the ground up to focus on the Arabic language in all its forms, from classical Arabic to a wide range of regional dialects, and is equipped with cultural and political safeguards tailored for the region.
“This is not just another large language model,” Amin said. “It’s proof that the Arab world can innovate, train, and deploy AI at a world-class level, according to our own standards.”
A Saudi-Built Innovation
The project was driven by a team of 40 PhD researchers, all based in the Kingdom. Working under tight confidentiality, they built what Amin describes as “the best Arabic model designed to meet our real needs.”
Allam was trained on proprietary datasets that, the company emphasizes, will “never be released on the public internet.” This gives it an unparalleled depth of local knowledge and accuracy in understanding compared with global models.
The model will first be available to the public via HUMAIN Chat, a free Arabic-language application similar to ChatGPT but with key differences. It not only handles formal Arabic with precision but can also converse naturally in dialects such as Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Lebanese. The system has already been tested in sensitive applications, including Sawtak, a tool for transcribing court session proceedings in Saudi Arabia.
“ChatGPT will never have the datasets we do,” Amin said. “I want the Arab world to start asking: why don’t we build a coalition to create AI models that reflect our culture and values?”
From the outset, Allam was designed to operate within a clear framework of responsible AI. Built-in safeguards at both the input and output stages ensure that its responses align with the cultural, social, and political norms of the region.
“This isn’t about censorship,” Amin stressed. “It’s about relevance and trust. A model is like a child: it needs guidance, education, and refinement to become a responsible adult. That’s our approach with Allam.”
HUMAIN itself is the product of a unique alliance, combining technical expertise from Aramco Digital and Saudi Arabia’s National Center for AI under the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA). Amin views the launch not as a finish line, but as the starting point for continuous improvement, driven by feedback from users across the Arab world.
The company’s broader vision is to create a marketplace where developers and businesses can access Allam and deploy ready-made use cases - from business automation to citizen services - without having to start from scratch.
The Size of the Opportunity
Arabic is spoken by more than 350 million people worldwide, yet Amin points out that it remains underrepresented in leading AI models, which are typically trained primarily in English and a small number of other languages. Even when Arabic support is available, coverage of dialects and cultural nuances is limited.
HUMAIN’s focus is therefore squarely on serving government entities that rely almost entirely on Arabic, as well as private-sector industries such as tourism and healthcare.
For Amin, Allam is more than just a linguistic project. “It’s the spark that can shift the Middle East’s position in the global digital economy, from consumer to creator of original platforms and products,” he said. “We don’t yet have a complete AI ecosystem of developers and companies. We need to believe in our abilities, and the time is now.”
World-Class Infrastructure
Alongside Allam, HUMAIN has been investing heavily in infrastructure. The company recently announced a major agreement with Silicon Valley startup Groq, known for its ultra-fast, cost-efficient AI inference technology.
Amin’s relationship with Groq began two years ago when he met CEO Jonathan Ross, the original inventor of Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), at an event in Saudi Arabia. Impressed by Groq’s ASIC-based architecture optimized for inference, Amin decided to integrate their technology into HUMAIN’s operations.
That bet has paid off. HUMAIN deployed 19,000 Groq Language Processing Units (LPUs) in just six days, enabling inference services at roughly 60% lower cost than anywhere else globally. The system boasts low energy consumption, SRAM-based memory architecture, and a custom design optimized for running large models efficiently.
OpenAI Models Go Live in Saudi Arabia
The HUMAIN –Groq partnership has already delivered a milestone: the immediate availability of OpenAI’s two latest open-source models - gpt-oss-120B and gpt-oss-20B - on the GroqCloud platform, with full local hosting in the Kingdom.
Both models support a 128,000-token context window, provide real-time responses, and include integrated tools such as code execution and web search. Today, HUMAIN’s Groq-powered inference infrastructure in Dammam is serving users in 130 countries, a first for Saudi Arabia, and likely for the Middle East as a whole.
Rethinking the Enterprise Operating System
While Allam is HUMAIN’s flagship model, the company is also gearing up for another major release in October: HUMAIN One, which Amin describes as “a complete reinvention of the enterprise operating system.”
Instead of switching between dozens of separate applications, users interact with a single unified interface - text or voice-based - that can execute complex tasks seamlessly across multiple systems.
In one pilot case, a single AI agent reduced a payroll preparation process from 30 staff-hours involving four employees down to just 30 minutes, with higher accuracy. HUMAIN One’s voice interface will work on Windows, macOS, and HUMAIN’s own AI-enabled PCs, which all company staff currently use.
The HUMAIN AI Computer
This integration will extend to HUMAIN’s own AI computer, designed entirely in Saudi Arabia in partnership with Qualcomm. The device combines CPU, GPU, and Neural Processing Unit (MPU) capabilities for comprehensive AI computing power, tailored for advanced applications.
The HUMAIN AI computer will debut at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh this October, with a global release planned afterward. “It will change the game,” Amin said. “When you see its specs and price compared to the market, you’ll understand our edge computing strategy - delivering fast, efficient local processing without over-reliance on remote data centers.”
AI as an Economic Pillar
From Allam to Groq-powered infrastructure to HUMAIN One, all of HUMAIN’s initiatives align with Saudi Vision 2030. Amin views AI as “the foundation upon which the entire strategy is built”, not only in tourism, healthcare, and industry, but across every sector.
He praised Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s approach as “both visionary and pragmatic,” treating AI “not as an optional tool, but as a necessity for economic growth, citizen empowerment, and sector-wide adoption.”
Investing in Local Talent
For Amin, HUMAIN’s success is first and foremost the result of its people, especially the Kingdom’s deep pool of AI talent.
“Some doubted whether we had the capabilities,” he said. “I told them: come and see for yourself.”
The presence of 40 PhD researchers behind Allam, he argued, is living proof that the Middle East can produce world-class AI models and challenge the assumption that the region must rely on external innovation.
