PIF, Google Cloud to establish artificial intelligence in Saudi Arabia

Dubai: PIF and Google Cloud announce a partnership to establish a new global artificial intelligence (AI) hub in Dammam, located in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

This agreement, signed at the Future Investment Initiative 8th Edition (FII8), positions Saudi Arabia as a leading destination for AI innovation, attracting both local and international enterprises and startups, according to the PIF.

The partnership aims to enhance the Saudi workforce through AI initiatives, targeting millions of students and professionals, and supports the national goal of expanding the information and communication technology (ICT) sector by 50 per cent.

Through this collaboration, customers will leverage Google Cloud’s technology to drive growth across various industries and improve the delivery of AI applications. Businesses and consumers can expect faster, higher-quality AI solutions and data services.

The partnership will focus on joint research for Arabic language models and AI applications tailored to Saudi needs. With Google Cloud’s experience in custom silicon, the infrastructure will feature tensor processing units (TPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), alongside the Vertex AI platform, designed for building generative AI applications.

To enhance Arabic-language models, PIF and Google Cloud will work on improving the Arabic capabilities of Gemini, Google’s generative AI model family, by integrating additional Arabic datasets.

Local businesses, researchers, and developers will be able to connect these models to their systems, enabling the creation of advanced Arabic language AI applications.

These new investments build on Google Cloud’s existing presence in Saudi Arabia, which includes the recently launched Dammam cloud region, part of its global network of 40 cloud regions.