Donald Trump hailed the US’s relationship with Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, simply hours after the White Home unveiled what it mentioned was $600bn price of defence, synthetic intelligence and different offers with the dominion.
The US president lauded the dominion and its de facto chief, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as he started the primary leg of his dealmaking, three-nation tour of the oil-rich Gulf.
“He’s an unbelievable man, I’ve identified him a very long time now. There’s no one like him,” Trump mentioned to a packed auditorium in Riyadh. Among the many company have been Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, personal fairness baron Stephen Schwarzman, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang and dozens of different US executives.
The US-Saudi relationship had been a “bedrock” of safety and prosperity, Trump mentioned. He added: “At the moment, we reaffirm the bond and take the subsequent steps to make our relationship nearer, stronger, extra highly effective than ever earlier than . . . And it’ll stay that means.”
In a press launch earlier than Trump’s speech, the White Home had hailed “Saudi Arabia’s $600bn dedication to put money into the US” and “financial ties that can endure for generations to come back”.
Prince Mohammed mentioned the 2 international locations would work over the approaching months to extend the overall to $1tn.
“We’re engaged on partnership alternatives with the US price $600bn, together with agreements of greater than $300bn introduced as we speak throughout this discussion board,” the crown prince mentioned.
The offers unveiled by the White Home included a dedication by Saudi Arabia’s new state-owned AI firm, Humain, to construct AI infrastructure within the kingdom utilizing a number of “hundred 1000’s” of Nvidia’s most superior chips over the subsequent 5 years.
That might make it one of many largest AI chip orders by a state firm, underlining the size of Prince Mohammed’s ambitions to place Saudi Arabia as a world AI hub and boosting Nvidia’s need to construct “sovereign AI” infrastructure all over the world.
The primary section of Humain’s funding would contain deploying 18,000 of Nvidia’s newest “Blackwell” servers, the chipmaker mentioned. Primarily based on the worth of a single Nvidia graphics processing unit, estimated at $30,000-$40,000, the Saudi funding would run into a number of billions of {dollars}.
AMD, considered one of Nvidia’s foremost opponents within the AI chip market, can be co-investing as much as $10bn with Humain to deploy its personal infrastructure within the nation. Amazon made the same $5bn dedication protecting knowledge centre infrastructure.
Nvidia shares rose 5.6 per cent on Tuesday, whereas AMD’s gained 4 per cent. Amazon was 1.3 per cent greater.
Jimmy Goodrich, senior adviser for expertise evaluation to the Rand Company think-tank, mentioned the “large scale” of the Center East AI bulletins would “undoubtedly eat into future US knowledge centre development”.
“As an alternative of offshoring the long run financial revolution to the Center East, a greater method could be to channel Gulf state cash into American re-industrialisation and power dominance,” Goodrich mentioned.
The White Home additionally cited on Tuesday what it mentioned was a “almost $142bn” settlement to supply Riyadh “with state-of-the-art warfighting gear and companies from over a dozen US defence corporations”.
It added this would come with air pressure and area capabilities, missile defence, maritime and border safety, land forces modernisation and upgrades to communication methods.
The US additionally referred to plans by Saudi Arabian DataVolt to take a position $20bn in AI knowledge centres and power infrastructure within the US.
Trump is seeking to safe offers and funding pledges price greater than $1tn on his journey to the Gulf, which may even embrace stops in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The standard US allies are among the many largest consumers of American weapons, boast sovereign wealth funds that collectively handle in extra of $3tn and have all said their ambitions to take a position closely in AI.
Lots of the US’s strongest tech executives have been additionally in Riyadh, together with Musk, Huang and OpenAI’s Sam Altman as Saudi Arabia hosted a glitzy funding discussion board. High financiers together with Blackstone’s Schwarzman, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Citigroup’s Jane Fraser additionally attended.
US tech firms have been more and more seeking to the Gulf, which manages a number of the world’s largest and most lively sovereign wealth funds, to lift capital and lure investments.
The Trump administration final week scrapped a Biden-era rule beneath which Saudi Arabia, together with dozens of different international locations together with India and Singapore, would have confronted limitations on their purchases of probably the most highly effective US-designed AI chips.
Riyadh launched Humain, which will likely be chaired by Prince Mohammed and owned by the Public Funding Fund, the $940bn sovereign wealth fund, to steer its technique and investments within the sector on Monday, the day earlier than Trump arrived.
Simply days after Trump’s inauguration in January, Prince Mohammed dedicated Saudi Arabia to investing $600bn within the US over the subsequent 4 years — the identical quantity that was introduced on Tuesday.
The UAE adopted up with the same gesture in March, pledging to take a position $1.4tn over the subsequent 10 years. It is usually looking for to determine itself as a number one AI hub and has taken a strategic determination to put money into US tech.
Analysts query how the Gulf states will be capable of deploy such an unlimited scale of capital within the timeframes introduced, notably Saudi Arabia because it grapples with decrease oil costs, a widening price range deficit and the size of its personal home initiatives.
Extra reporting by Michael Acton in San Francisco
