AMD, Cisco and Saudi’s Humain launch AI joint venture, land first major customer
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Advanced Micro Devices, Cisco Systems and Saudi Arabian artificial intelligence startup Humain are forming a joint venture to build data centers in the Middle East and have landed their first customers, the CEOs of the three companies said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday.
The as-yet-unnamed joint venture will kick off with a 100-megawatt data center project in Saudi Arabia, the computing capacity of which Humain is contracted to supply prolific video startup Luma AI, according to Humain CEO Tareq Amin. The size of the project and its first customer were not previously reported.
“They will be the first customer of this cluster,” Amin said, adding that Luma had a contract to purchase the entire 100 megawatt capacity.
The joint venture between the companies is an offshoot of a series of deals announced during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May. More cooperation is expected when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Trump meet in Washington this week. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has backed Humain and its plans to build major data centers across the country because of abundant, available property and cheap energy.
US technology companies such as Nvidia and Qualcomm also signed agreements in May.
In May, AMD announced a $10 billion collaboration with Humain, which included the purchase of AMD’s advanced artificial intelligence chips. AMD and Cisco are minority shareholders in the joint venture and will share the venture’s profits and losses, executives said. AMD CEO Lisa Su said Humain will take the lead.
“We’re really going to be responsible together to make sure this is successful,” he said.
The companies did not disclose additional financial details.
Amin said the joint venture aims to serve a total market of approximately 4.5 billion people, covering Asia, Europe, India, the Middle East and Africa.
Plans include building up to one gigawatt of new data centers to support the joint venture by 2030.
For the initial 100-megawatt installation, Cisco will provide networking equipment and other infrastructure, while AMD will provide the MI450 AI chips. Amin said that the first phase is planned to be built in 2026 and will use entirely renewable energy. Humain is also taking purchase orders for some future buildings.
Amin said that construction of various projects has not yet started.
In addition to providing infrastructure equipment, Cisco will also use its sales force to help sell capacity in yet-to-be-established data centers. Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said the company has a 25-year history of creating incentives for sales teams and plans to use that expertise to help Humain sell its data center capacity.
(Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
