VC React Podcast (Episode #35)

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This week on VC React, we unpack the flood of AI announcements coming out of Saudi, from the launch of HUMAIN and multi-billion-dollar chip deals with NVIDIA, to new AI focused venture funds from Wyld VC and STV.

We open with HUMAIN, a newly launched national AI company backed by PIF and chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Led by former Rakuten Mobile CEO Tareq Amin, and supported by executives from Microsoft, AWS, and Nokia, the company is structured to operate across the full AI value chain – cloud, chips, foundational models, and application development. HUMAIN plans to develop one of the world’s most powerful Arabic LLMs and will focus on solutions across sectors including healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and energy.

The launch coincided with a series of announcements involving NVIDIA, AMD, and AWS. HUMAIN and NVIDIA have partnered to build large-scale AI compute infrastructure in the Kingdom, beginning with 18,000 Grace Blackwell GPUs and 500 megawatts of capacity. AMD has signed a $10 billion joint venture to develop data centers, while AWS is supporting a $5 billion AI Zone for sovereign cloud and enterprise AI tooling.

In parallel, STV has announced a $100 million AI fund, backed by Google. This marks Google’s first investment in a MENA VC firm and reflects growing interest in localised AI infrastructure and applications. STV plans to support early-stage startups building foundational and application-layer tools.

Also in the spotlight is Wyld VC, the MENA region’s first venture fund focused exclusively on AI. The $50 million early-stage fund was founded by Tala Hasan Al-Jabri and is aimed at backing founders building in middleware and application-layer AI. With support from the Lawrence E. Golub family office, Wyld brings a cross-border footprint and a founder-first approach to a space still dominated by infrastructure and state-led initiatives.

This week, Ahmad and I were joined by:

• Eyad Albayouk, General Manager @ Flat6Labs KSA

• Hassan Ikram, Angel Investor, Founder and CEO of Cotyledon, and Founder and Chairman of ThriftPlan

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