Saudi Arabia is reportedly in discussions with private equity firms such as BlackRock and Blackstone for an AI partnership, as per a Bloomberg report.
If the result of the talks is successful, BlackRock and Blackstone will be pouring billions of dollars into Saudi Arabian AI firm Humain. Humain is owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
The update comes as countries around the world are investing large amounts of money to create their own large-scale AI firm in an attempt to compete with OpenAI, which has been collaborating with governments to help them set up suitable infrastructure, such as data centers, to help grow the emerging sector.
As of now, the majority of pure play AI companies are private, with the majority of stock market capitalization led by established tech companies such as NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Google.
Saudi Arabia and BlackRock extensively partnered through the country’s oil sector
If the deal goes through, Saudi Arabia and BlackRock will be strengthening ties, adding a new sector alongside oil— the asset management company already has a significant stake in Saudi Aramco’s gas plant and pipeline interests via a lease back deal and investment through entities—to their collaboration.