عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Business

Saudi Arabia Announces First Bundle of Projects by 'Shareek' Program Worth $51 Billion

Saudi Crown Prince amid Ministers and CEOs during the ceremony of announcing the first bundle of projects supported by the Private Sector Partnership Reinforcement (Shareek) Program in Riyadh on Wednesday (AAWSAT)
Saudi Crown Prince amid Ministers and CEOs during the ceremony of announcing the first bundle of projects supported by the Private Sector Partnership Reinforcement (Shareek) Program in Riyadh on Wednesday (AAWSAT)
TT
20
TT

Saudi Arabia Announces First Bundle of Projects by 'Shareek' Program Worth $51 Billion

Saudi Crown Prince amid Ministers and CEOs during the ceremony of announcing the first bundle of projects supported by the Private Sector Partnership Reinforcement (Shareek) Program in Riyadh on Wednesday (AAWSAT)
Saudi Crown Prince amid Ministers and CEOs during the ceremony of announcing the first bundle of projects supported by the Private Sector Partnership Reinforcement (Shareek) Program in Riyadh on Wednesday (AAWSAT)

In the presence of Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the Large Companies Investment Committee, a ceremony was held on Wednesday to announce the first bundle of projects supported by the Shareek program, which is dedicated for large companies to help unlock the full potential of Saudi Arabia’s private sector, and contribute to achieving the national targets defined by Vision 2030.

The program was launched by the Crown Prince on 30 March 2021, who will also oversee its implementation as the Chairman of the Large Companies Investment Committee. To date, 28 companies are enrolled in the Shareek program.

A number of senior government ministers and private sector leaders attended the ceremony and witnessed the signing of framework agreements for 12 projects that have been approved within the Shareek incentives criteria, across eight companies, in a number of strategic sectors.

The projects will contribute to the Kingdom's economic growth, diversify industries, promote innovation, and further enable public-private partnerships.

The Shareek program seeks helping eligible companies accelerate planned projects and identify new potential partnerships and investment opportunities through government support.

In remarks during the ceremony, CEO of Shareek program Abdulaziz Al-Arifi, said that the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, led by the Crown Prince, contributes to making the Kingdom a leading destination for investment and growth, with its focus on bolstering partnerships with the private sector as a key catalyst for sustainable economic development.

Al-Arifi revealed that the overall value of the announced investments is around SAR 192 billion ($51.2 billion), including SAR 120 billion spent by large companies by the end of 2030 to achieve more than SAR 466 billion in GDP growth by 2040.

He added that these projects support the growth of eight national companies and contribute to raising their international competitiveness, in addition to generating a strong ripple effect across entire value chains.

The signing ceremony included the announcement of strategic projects including one by Aramco, which will receive support to accelerate implementation of five projects, creating more than ten thousand jobs, including a joint venture steel plate manufacturing project, aiming to make Saudi Arabia 100% self-sufficient for steel plate demand by 2030; a cloud project which will attract Google Cloud services into the Kingdom and establish Saudi Arabia as a hub for advanced cloud computing technologies; an engine manufacturing project which will aid in the development of a sustainable maritime sector and unlock greater value from metals and machinery sectors; a casting and forging project in Ras Al Khair.

Also in the energy sector, ACWA Power will receive Shareek support for the construction of the world’s largest green hydrogen plant, which is being developed in partnership with NEOM Green Hydrogen Company and Air Products Qudra. The project demonstrates Saudi Arabia’s capabilities as a green energy leader, in support of the Kingdom’s net zero ambitions.

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) will receive support to accelerate its Phosphate 3 project in Wa’ad Al Shamal, which is set to position the company as the third largest global producer of phosphate fertilizers by 2029 and enhance the Kingdom’s position in the world’s agricultural value chain, aiding global food security.

Within the Kingdom’s petrochemicals sector, the industry leader SABIC has received support for a catalyst project, primed to reduce Saudi Arabia’s import dependency and enhance its position as an exporter by establishing KSA’s first catalyst manufacturing hub.

Through a joint venture, Shareek will also provide support to Advanced Petrochemical Company to produce methionine, which will contribute to enhancing food security in the Kingdom and raising the efficiency of food security. Stc will implement an EMC cable project, strengthening Saudi Arabia’s position as a MENA region digital hub and reliable route for data traffic. Also, Zain Saudi Arabia will be accelerating a data center project, set to help transform the Kingdom into a digital economy by ensuring readiness for future IT advancements.

Saudi logistics giant Bahri will scale up its capacity for ammonia transportation through a project supported by Shareek, set to provide ammonia transport services for the first time in the Kingdom, reducing international vessel dependency and enhancing local content in the logistics sector.

Shareek aims to unlock SAR 5 trillion in domestic private sector investments by 2030 and contribute to the goals set out in Vision 2030, which target an increase in private sector GDP contribution to 65% and an increase non-oil exports from 16% to 50%.

The program is implemented with the support of several sectorial supervisory committees led by senior government officials. The projects announced at the event represent the first wave of supported projects. Many more projects are expected to be supported, and these will be announced in due course.

Most Viewed

 
Business

HUMAIN to Launch ‘Allam,’ the First Arabic AI Foundation Model from Saudi Arabia

Allam is the first foundational AI model developed from scratch in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the Arabic language and its dialects
Allam is the first foundational AI model developed from scratch in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the Arabic language and its dialects
TT
20
TT

HUMAIN to Launch ‘Allam,’ the First Arabic AI Foundation Model from Saudi Arabia

Allam is the first foundational AI model developed from scratch in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the Arabic language and its dialects
Allam is the first foundational AI model developed from scratch in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the Arabic language and its dialects

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.