Nvidia Strikes Major Deal with Saudi Arabia to Supply 18,000 'Blackwell' Chips

Nvidia Signs AI Chip Supply Deal with Saudi Arabia's Humain
Announcement Coincides with Trump's Visit to the Middle East
Nvidia Shares Surge 5.6% on News of Major Saudi Deal

CNBC, a US economic media outlet, reported on May 13 (local time) that Nvidia, the leading artificial intelligence (AI) company, will supply more than 18,000 of its latest AI chips to Saudi Arabia. This move is part of the easing of export restrictions on technology such as AI chips, and it is expected to mark the beginning of large-scale AI cooperation projects between the two countries.

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, announced at the 'Saudi-US Investment Forum' held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that he had signed a contract with the local company Humain for the supply of the latest AI chips. The announcement coincided with US President Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia.

In his announcement, CEO Huang stated that Nvidia plans to sell more than 18,000 units of its latest AI chip, the GB300 Blackwell chip, to Humain. These chips will be installed in a 500MW (megawatt) data center to be built in Saudi Arabia.

He explained, "Saudi Arabia is a country rich in energy resources," and added, "By leveraging this energy, the country is transforming into an AI factory-like system through large-scale Nvidia AI supercomputers."

Currently, the AI accelerator market is dominated by a few large cloud companies such as Microsoft and Amazon. Nvidia and AMD are working to attract 'state-led AI investments' in order to diversify their customer base beyond these concentrated clients. The cooperation with Saudi Arabia is seen as part of this strategy.

Humain is a newly established AI-focused company by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund and leads the construction of AI infrastructure and data centers. The company plans to focus especially on developing large language models (LLMs) based on Arabic. CEO Tareq Amin announced that they aim to establish data centers with a total capacity of 1.9GW by 2030.

CNBC noted, "As countries around the world compete to secure the latest chips for training and operating advanced AI software like ChatGPT, Nvidia chips are being used as a diplomatic bargaining tool by the Trump administration."

Following news that Nvidia would supply a large volume of AI chips to Saudi Arabia, Nvidia's stock price on the New York Stock Exchange closed up 5.63% that day. The closing price was the highest since February 26 (131.27 dollars), and during the session, it surpassed the 130-dollar mark. This marks a rebound in the stock's performance, which had been declining since the beginning of the year.

Meanwhile, AMD also announced in a separate statement that it plans to provide its semiconductors and software for a data center construction project stretching from Saudi Arabia to the United States, with the project valued at approximately 10 billion dollars (about 13.5 trillion won).