Saudi Arabia is installing artificial intelligence (AI) Compute Clusters in Datacentres Accross the Country to Compete for Enterprise Business in Europe, The Middle East and AFRRICA Engine of a Global Ai Platform Being Built by Us Chip Pioneer Groq.
The Saudi Kingdom's State Oil Firm, Aramco, is scoping Multiple Sites to House What May Amount to 3.5 Million Ai Infererance Processors – An Astounding Amount for the US Firm that only last last year, on second a landmark $ 640m investment For a global expansion, declared its plans envisaging 100,000 more of them.
While European Officials Struggle to Improve the Continent's Ai Competitiveness with Proposals to Fix Its Broken Markets and Lift Its Laggard Computing Sector, The Us MARKET LADER IS MARKET LADER IS ALEREDY BULIND Compute Cluster in Northern Europe as Well, with Norwegian Datacentre operator waiys, to be powerrated by about 130,000 infection processors, it said last year.
That was before Aramco Pledged To put $ 1.5bn into building a single Groq Region-Twice the Amount Groq Raised for its self-funded expansion over two sits in europe and asia, which, with it its existing us cluster, will be found Cloud Computing Platform Specialized to Handle Demand for High-Volume Ai Workloads.
Even so, Aramco and Groq Have Quitly Dropped A Declared Ambition for their Middle East Venture to Be the Larget Ai Inference Compute Cluster in the World.
Competition Mounting
Competition has meanwhile been mounting from eu and us firms that have been seconds similary immense investments themselves to build ai cloud computing firms Running the Most Expensive and Powerful Graphics Processing Units (GPUS) Chips by Ai Chip Leader Nvidia. These not only handle the taxing, high-Volume demand for Large Language Models (LLMS) to infer answers for queries posted by users and business applications, but also can do the do the do the do the doly required to create – or train – the brains in the first place.
Aramco's Middle East Cluster Will Nevertheles Remain The Single Most Important Ai Infererance Engine In Groq's Global System, and is already – and will containue – and will containue – service Europe, North Africa and West Asia as Well, Groq Chief Revenue Officer IAN Andrew Told Computer Weekly,
Moreover, The Oil Firm's $ 1.5BN was on Top of Money Groq Had Alredy Spent Constructing a Middle East Cluster Late in 2024, said andrew. He would not reveal the total investment.
“IT's Probably Over 3.5 Million Lpus [language processing units] Over the course of 2025, “Andrew said of the saudi computer facility, although adding that was a rough calculation.
“We have a datacentre in dammam and plans to expand to other sites in saudi over the year. It [will be] The single largest region in a global network, “He said. So, we see traffic predominantly from the middle East, North Africa, West Asia and Europe. ”
“We expect that to continue. Demand for ai continues to go up.
The facility will help Saudi Arabia Fulfil Its Vision 2030 Plan to transform its economy and politics by importing advanced technologies and pursuing the digital transformation of government and industry, Industry, Said Tarique, CEO of Aramputing Subesidiry, on announcing the groq deal in September.
State Officials Hope it will attract ai startups to the region. The Gulf Monarchy's Plan Involves Building Tech Industries to Diversify its monolithic petro-state economy, Accommodate a growing population, and prepare for a post-oil world.
Saudi Government and Industry was motivated to build the Groq Cluster for the Sake of Data Sovereignty, said andrew. They also use ai to run their organisical processes with data leaveing the country.
Investments Pouring in
Meanwhile, Investors Have Been Pouring Money Into Other Ai Cloud Compute Firms, Many of Them Conventional Cloud Computing Firms, ONLY HUSIN MANIS SAMING POWERFUL NVIDIA GPUS and Offering Customers The Means to buyild And host their own ai models, as well as handle inference work demanded of them in operation.
Aramco and other sTETE-Owned Gulf Corporations have been doing deals and making investments in Groq Rivals as well. Aramco did a deal to use ai chips made by Groq's Closest Rival, Us-Based Cerebras, Last Year, declaring It would use them to deliver Local Cloud Services for Not Only Infection Processing, but also also building and training ai models. Government-Owned Tech Firm G42 in the NeighBouring Gulf State of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said last last year it was building a 16-deaflop ai computer with serbras. That would put it among The most powerful supercomputers in the world,
Alan Chabra, Executive Vice-PRESIDENT of Worldwide Partnerships at Cerebras, said the g42 deal was its list with a public customer, but Aramco Had Plans to Expand it as wll. European firms were done things on a smaller scale, he said.
Aramco Venture Arm Wa'ed also LED A $ 176M Investment in Ori Industries, A UK-Based Ai Cloud Services Firm that Uses Nvidia Gpus. It has operated with minimal funding since being founded in 2018.
UK-Based Graphcore, Another Developer of Ai Infererance Processors, Raised a Similar Amount of Venture Capital as Groq, On A Simlar Valuation, Before Beeing Acquire Year. Other Notable Deals Include France's Scaleway Pledging A € 10bn ai datacentre in paris, while us ai cloud firm coreweveve coreweve After Raising About $ 20Bn.
Amrik Sangha, A Partner at Law Firm Gately, Who Advises “Big Tech” Firms Building Ai Datacentres in the Gulf, Said the Region Cannot Spare Resources to serve emea. It is trying to build capacity to satisfy growing local demand. The region's datacentre capacity is so far behind the eu and us that direction of travel of Gulf data comerce is usually the other way round, with countries running their services in datentres in datentres in data