State-backed AI venture Humain has secured 211 plots of land across Saudi Arabia for its data center expansion, the company confirmed to DCD.

In a recent statement to The Information, Humain’s CEO Tareq Amin said the firm’s strategy “is built on geographic diversity and multiple fiber-optic routes, which is possible because of the Kingdom’s vast land mass.”

The company declined to provide DCD with further details about specific locations or projects.

Humain is building major data center facilities in Riyadh and Dammam, expected to go live in Q2 2026. These sites will have an initial capacity of 100MW each as part of Humain’s plan to reach approximately 6GW of data center capacity over the next decade.

In addition to the land acquisition, last month, Amin wrote on X that the company achieved “a milestone” following the delivery of Qualcomm’s full-stack AI racks to one of its data centers under construction.

“The AI100-powered racks are now being installed, enabling large-scale inferencing and edge-to-cloud hybrid AI where performance, efficiency, and low latency are critical,” said Amin.

“Phase one deploys 1,024 AI accelerators, one of the largest Qualcomm implementations globally, with Adobe as the first customer of these racks.”

Humain has secured partnerships with major industry players, including AWS via a $5bn ‘AI Zone’, Saudi Telecom Company through a joint venture to develop 1GW of capacity, and Elon Musk’s xAI to build a 500MW data center.

In November, Humain announced a collaboration with Saudi-based DataVolt to develop a “multi-gigawatt data center pipeline,” and in January, Humain set up a $1.2bn financing agreement with Saudi Arabia’s National Infrastructure Fund to build 250MW of data center capacity in the Kingdom.

Humain has also shown international expansion ambitions. In December, it partnered with US-focused data center firm Global AI for a deployment in New York. The companies are planning to deliver large-scale AI data center and compute capacity across the US.

Humain was launched in May 2025 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a subsidiary of the country's Public Investment Fund to advance Saudi Arabia’s AI strategy and position the Kingdom as a global leader.

However, analysts have questioned the long-term viability of the data center sector in the Gulf country. According to a report published by Rest of World and non-profit Climate Central, nearly all data centers in the country are located in regions considered too hot for normal operations.

Learn more about the data center market in Saudi Arabia and meet with other executives and experts in the region at the DCN Riyadh event next year.