AI: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates opt for Nvidia

Two Arab nations are making a swift entry into the global AI race, namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

In a bid to propel their AI industries in the global spotlight, the two monarchies embarked on a significant acquisition of Nvidia Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).

Tech and the post-oil future

The two Gulf countries are betting on tech as part of their strategies to transform their economies and diversify them away from ol dependency, a pivotal part of their respective visionary roadmaps -Vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia and Vision 2031 in the UAE.

Saudi Arabia has acquired a substantial cache of 3,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, at the cutting edge of this technology, for a combined value of $120 million. Each individual GPU costs $40,000. Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, lauds these GPUs as “the world’s first computer chip designed for generative AI.”

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Remarkable first steps

At the helm of Saudi Arabia’s AI expedition is the project codenamed Shaheen III, a supercomputer project poised to reshape computational horizons, planned to be powered by 700 Nvidia Grace Hopper superconductor chips.

Akin to its neighbor, the UAE is orchestrating a profound national revolution in AI through strategic developments. The UAE’s state-owned Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi has recently announced the creation of Falcon, an open-source large language model.

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Karim Al-Mansour

Journalist with a passion for contemporary Arab culture and social change in the Middle East, I now have over 15 years' experience in the media (print and digital). With solid expertise in editorial strategy and storytelling, I'm motivated by the idea of building bridges between cultures through engaging and informative content.

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