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Foundation Stone Laid for World’s Largest Government Data Center in Riyadh

Officials are seen at Thursday's ceremony. (SPA)
Officials are seen at Thursday's ceremony. (SPA)
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Foundation Stone Laid for World’s Largest Government Data Center in Riyadh

Officials are seen at Thursday's ceremony. (SPA)
Officials are seen at Thursday's ceremony. (SPA)

The foundation stone was laid in Riyadh Thursday for the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) “Hexagon” Data Center, the world’s largest government data center by megawatt capacity.

Classified as Tier IV and holding the highest data center rating by the global Uptime Institute, the facility will have a total capacity of 480 megawatts and will be built on an area exceeding 30 million square feet in the Saudi capital.

Designed to the highest international standards, the center will provide maximum availability, security, and operational readiness for government data centers. It will meet the growing needs of government entities and support the increasing reliance on electronic services.

The project will contribute to strengthening the national economy and reinforce the Kingdom’s position as a key player in the future of the global digital economy.

A ceremony was held on the occasion, attended by senior officials from various government entities. They were received at the venue by President of SDAIA Dr. Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi and SDAIA officials.

Director of the National Information Center at SDAIA Dr. Issam bin Abdullah Alwagait outlined the project’s details, technical and engineering specifications, and the operational architecture ensuring the highest levels of readiness and availability.

He also reviewed the international accreditations obtained for the center’s solutions and engineering design in line with recognized global standards.

In a press statement, SDAIA President Dr. Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi said the landmark national project comes as part of the continued support of Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister and Chairman of SDAIA’s Board of Directors.

This support enables the authority, as the Kingdom’s competent body for data, including big data, and artificial intelligence and the national reference for their regulation, development, and use, to contribute to advancing the Kingdom toward leadership among data- and AI-driven economies, he noted.

The Kingdom will continue to strengthen its presence in advanced technologies with the ongoing support of the Crown Prince, he stressed.

SDAIA will pursue pioneering projects that reflect its ambitious path toward building an integrated digital ecosystem, strengthening national enablers in data and artificial intelligence, and developing world-class technical infrastructure that boosts the competitiveness of the national economy and attracts investment. This aligns with Saudi Vision 2030’s objectives of building a sustainable knowledge-based economy and achieving global leadership in advanced technologies.

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Technology

Nvidia Clinches Deals with South Korean Giants Including SK Group to Advance AI Boom

US chip giant Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang (R), and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (L), arrive to a briefing after their meeting at the business group's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, 08 June 2026. (EPA)
US chip giant Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang (R), and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (L), arrive to a briefing after their meeting at the business group's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, 08 June 2026. (EPA)
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Nvidia Clinches Deals with South Korean Giants Including SK Group to Advance AI Boom

US chip giant Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang (R), and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (L), arrive to a briefing after their meeting at the business group's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, 08 June 2026. (EPA)
US chip giant Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang (R), and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (L), arrive to a briefing after their meeting at the business group's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, 08 June 2026. (EPA)

Nvidia on Monday announced a series of deals in South Korea with tech giants including SK Hynix and Naver, as it looks to secure crucial memory chips to power its AI ambitions and entice new customers.

The agreements come during a high-profile trip by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to South Korea that began on Friday and has seen him dine on grilled pork belly and local spirit soju with the country's top corporate bosses, throw a baseball pitch and meet with a well-known gamer.

Nvidia and its partners, which also included SK Telecom and conglomerate Doosan Group, did not disclose the value of the deals.

SK Group, South Korea's second-largest family-owned conglomerate, said its SK Hynix and SK Telecom arms had agreed deals with Nvidia.

Memory chip maker SK Hynix signed a multi-year technology partnership ‌that will see ‌it commit to developing advanced types of memory for global AI data centers, SK ‌Group ⁠said.

SK Hynix and ⁠Nvidia said the agreement, which comes as memory chip makers have been straining to keep up with demand, would enable supply to keep pace with Nvidia's plans, which have expanded to robotics, personal computers and AI supercomputers.

"SK Hynix has been Nvidia's largest memory partner. SK Hynix will continue to be Nvidia's largest memory partner," Huang said after a meeting with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won at the headquarters of the chipmaker's parent.

Huang said the deal with SK Hynix, a rival to Samsung Electronics and US-based Micron Technology, was for more than two years with the option to keep extending.

"We already procure and we buy from SK Hynix already billions ⁠and billions of dollars each year, and it's going to grow substantially," he said.

Ryu Young-ho, ‌a senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said the SK Hynix-Nvidia partnership reinforced ‌the view that memory chips were evolving from a commodity product into a more customer-specific business.

OTHER DEALS

SK Telecom said it would build ‌a gigawatt-scale AI cloud in South Korea using Nvidia technology, with the first AI data center to come online in ‌2027. Nvidia said internet giant Naver and conglomerate Doosan would also use its technology to help build AI data centers.

Doosan, which is developing robots and makes materials used in Nvidia's most powerful Blackwell chips, said it expected its energy solution to be used in Nvidia's data center platforms and for it to use the US firm's physical AI technology as well.

Nvidia is also partnering with LG Group on electronics, mechanical ‌systems and AI for humanoid robots, Huang said after a meeting with the tech conglomerate's Chairman Koo Kwang-mo.

Huang said the pair were also working on the architecture ⁠of future data centers including cooling, ⁠power delivery and the entire design and building of the data centers.

SOUTH KOREA STOCK RALLY FALTERS

South Korea is an Asian manufacturing powerhouse, home to major producers of chips, electronics, cars and ships. SK Hynix and Samsung are the world's two largest makers of memory chips, which are key components in data centers.

The country's benchmark Kospi index has doubled in six months as heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung benefited from the AI wave, but dove almost 9% on Monday after robust US jobs data fanned bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike this year and sparked a rout in global tech stocks.

Shares in Samsung and SK Hynix both plunged more than 10% in early trading before trimming some losses, with Samsung later down 4.6% and SK Hynix falling 0.6%.

When asked about the global chip stock rout, Huang waved off concerns, saying: "Everybody should be very excited; they can now buy stock at a cheaper price, and it's absolutely true that the future of AI is very bright."

Huang also told reporters after a fried chicken dinner with Chey on Sunday that he planned to meet Samsung's Jun Young-hyun, who leads the company's semiconductor business, on Monday. He will also meet with Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung on Monday afternoon.

Technology

China Bets on AI to Promote President Xi Jinping's Thinking

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, China's President Xi Jinping gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Years of Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Education in Beijing on May 20, 2026. (Photo by Kristina Solovyova / POOL / AFP)
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, China's President Xi Jinping gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Years of Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Education in Beijing on May 20, 2026. (Photo by Kristina Solovyova / POOL / AFP)
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China Bets on AI to Promote President Xi Jinping's Thinking

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, China's President Xi Jinping gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Years of Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Education in Beijing on May 20, 2026. (Photo by Kristina Solovyova / POOL / AFP)
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, China's President Xi Jinping gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Years of Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Education in Beijing on May 20, 2026. (Photo by Kristina Solovyova / POOL / AFP)

Xinhuanet, owned by China's official Xinhua news agency, plans to invest over 1.1 billion yuan ($162.38 million) on an "authoritative" AI agent to help promote President Xi Jinping's thinking, Shanghai Stock Exchange filings showed.

The project, known as "Xinhua Yudian," meaning Xinhua lexicon, is "an intelligent agent for learning, researching, and disseminating Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era," the company said.

Driven by mainstream values and dedicated to "spreading the positive voice," the agentic AI will also provide users ⁠with current affairs and ⁠political news content to help them deal with information overload and "a dilemma of trust in distinguishing truth from falsehood.”

China in March launched a sweeping "AI+" blueprint to encourage the adoption of artificial intelligence across all sectors of the economy. It also ⁠follows previous tech-driven efforts to broaden the reach of official state ideology among an online-savvy younger generation.

In 2019, China rolled out a hit propaganda app known as "Xuexi Qiangguo," which literally translates as "Study to make China strong." At one point after its launch, it overtook WeChat and the Chinese version of TikTok to become the most popular app on Apple's China app store.

Xinhua's proposed agentic AI will ⁠present the ⁠essence of Xi's discourses to its users, who can rely on the tool as a politically sensitive citation checker, ensuring references to Xi's words "in official document writing and policy interpretation are accurate and error-free."

To be built on the state-run news agency's "pure and clean" corpus library, the AI will help deliver the party's voice to all sectors of Chinese society, lending further support to "consolidating the ideological and public opinion foundation," the company said.

Technology

Anthropic Calls for Pause of Global AI Development

FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration created on March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration created on March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Anthropic Calls for Pause of Global AI Development

FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration created on March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Anthropic logo is seen in this illustration created on March 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic suggested Thursday a global pause on building the most powerful AI systems as the latest models are beginning to show signs they could escape human control.

The San Francisco-based company, which makes the Claude family of AI models, said in a report that a worldwide slowdown in cutting-edge AI development would "likely be a good thing" -- but warned that if only one company stopped, rivals would simply race ahead.

"We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology," AFP quoted it as saying.

Getting a real pause to work would mean multiple major AI companies in multiple countries -- most notably the United States and China -- all agreeing to stop at the same time, under rules everyone could actually verify, Anthropic said.

That idea may prove somewhat unpopular with the likes of Elon Musk, as the hotly anticipated stock market debut of his SpaceX company -- which owns his artificial intelligence venture xAI -- is expected to make him the world's first trillionaire.

"Without a global coordination mechanism, companies and governments will have to make difficult decisions about safety while under competitive and geopolitical pressures," Anthropic said.

The company has faced pushback from others in the industry -- and officials in the White House -- who say its focus on worst-case scenarios overstates the risks and amounts to a strategy for slowing rivals under the cover of safety concerns.

Still, the White House has acknowledged the power of the company's Mythos model -- which has not been made available to the general public due to its cybersecurity capabilities and is currently deployed only to a small number of vetted organizations.

The proposal would face an uphill battle in Washington and Silicon Valley, where US officials and tech executives have repeatedly argued that any slowdown in AI development risks handing China a decisive strategic edge in what many see as the defining technology race of the century.

US President Donald Trump, however, said he discussed the possibility of cooperating with China on AI safety issues during his recent visit to Beijing.

Trump also signed an executive order this week that allows the government 30 days to conduct a preliminary review of the most powerful US AI models before their release.

Anthropic compared the problem to nuclear arms control treaties, but said it would be even harder to get a handle on since AI training is far easier to hide than a missile silo, and the temptation to quietly keep going would be enormous.

"You want the option to be able to take your foot off the gas and put your foot on the brake," Anthropic's co-founder Jack Clark told Britain's BBC Newsnight on Thursday.

"Right now, it's like the AI industry has a gas pedal, but it doesn't have a brake pedal."

The company said it plans to bring together government officials, scientists, advocacy groups and competing AI firms in coming months to figure out how such a system could work.

The call for coordination comes alongside internal data showing that AI is already dramatically speeding up the development of AI itself, Anthropic said.

That acceleration creates a feedback loop that Anthropic warned could eventually lead to what researchers call "recursive self-improvement."

That's the idea of an AI system that becomes capable of essentially teaching itself to get smarter, without much human help.

"We are not there yet, and recursive self-improvement is not inevitable," the Anthropic report said, while adding that it could arrive sooner than most governments and institutions are ready for.

"The evidence suggests that the human role is narrowing at each step in the AI development process," the company said.