Exclusive-AMD, Cisco and Saudi’s Humain launch AI joint venture, land first major customer

By Max A. Cherney

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Advanced Micro Devices, Cisco Systems and Saudi Arabian artificial intelligence startup Humain are forming a joint venture to build data centers in the Middle ​East and have landed their first customer, CEOs at the three companies told Reuters in an interview on ‌Tuesday.

The yet-to-be-named joint venture will kick off with a 100-megawatt data center project in Saudi Arabia – the computing capacity of ‌which Humain has contracted to supply generative video startup Luma AI, according to Humain CEO Tareq Amin. The size of the project and the first customer have not been reported before.

“They will be the first customer of this cluster,” Amin said, adding that Luma has contracted to purchase the entire 100-megawatt capacity.

The joint venture between the companies is a byproduct of ⁠a flurry of deals announced when U.S.‌ President Donald Trump visited Riyadh in May, and more collaboration is expected as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Trump meet in Washington this week. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth ‍fund has backed Humain and its plans to produce significant data center buildouts across the country because of abundant, available property and cheap power.

U.S. tech firms such as Nvidia, Qualcomm also secured agreements in May.

In May, AMD said it formed a $10 billion collaboration ​with Humain that included purchases of AMD’s advanced AI chips. In the joint venture, AMD and Cisco ‌are minority shareholders and will share in the profit and loss of the endeavor, the executives said. Humain will take the lead, AMD CEO Lisa Su said.

“We will together really have responsibility for ensuring that it’s successful,” she said.

The companies did not disclose additional financial details.

The joint venture aims to serve a market that includes Asia, Europe, India, the Middle East and Africa, Amin said, with a total market of roughly 4.5 billion people.

The ⁠plans include building up to one gigawatt of new data centers to ​support the joint venture by 2030.

For the initial buildout of 100 megawatts,​ Cisco will provide the networking equipment and other infrastructure and AMD will provide its MI450 AI chips. The first stage is planned for construction in 2026 and will use renewable energy entirely, Amin ‍said. Humain is receiving ⁠purchase orders for some of the future building as well.

Construction has not yet begun on the various projects, Amin said.

In addition to providing infrastructure equipment, Cisco will also use its salesforce to help sell capacity in the yet-⁠to-be-built data centers. Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said that the company has a 25-year history of putting together incentives for its sales teams ‌and plans to use that expertise to help Humain sell its data center capacity.

(Reporting by Max ‌A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Lincoln Feast)