Tareq Amin, CEO of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed A.I. venture Humain, leads the kingdom’s $600 billion push to build sovereign A.I. capabilities. Courtesy of Humain
Tareq Amin, featured on this year’s A.I. Power Index, is at the center of Saudi Arabia’s high-stakes push to build a sovereign A.I. infrastructure. As CEO of Humain, the kingdom’s state-backed A.I. venture, Amin is steering a rollout of unprecedented scale, and the stakes go well beyond apps or chatbots. “The real game is infrastructure: compute, data, energy and connectivity,” he argues. “Without solving those, you’re layering gimmicks on top of fragile systems.”
Amin’s playbook draws on lessons from telecom, where he helped pioneer Rakuten’s Open RAN network and later briefly led Aramco Digital. That background, he says, taught him that infrastructure is everything—and that nothing is impossible. At Humain, those principles are being applied to A.I. at sovereign scale, combining global partnerships with Nvidia, Cisco and Groq with a mandate to deliver scalable, secure systems designed for long-term growth.
What’s one assumption about A.I. that you think is dead wrong?
People think A.I. is about “apps” or “chatbots.” That’s dead wrong. The real game is infrastructure: compute, data, energy and connectivity. Without solving those, you’re just layering gimmicks on top of fragile systems. At Humain, we’ve proven that if you start with infrastructure-first thinking, everything else falls into place.
If you had to pick one moment in the last year when you thought “Oh shit, this changes everything” about A.I., what was it?
For me, it wasn’t a flashy product demo. It was when our A.I. agents started running real back-office processes like payroll, finance, legal—and they worked. I realized in that moment: this isn’t just about productivity tools. This is about reinventing how companies operate at their core. That was my ‘this changes everything’ moment.
What’s something about A.I. development that keeps you up at night that most people aren’t talking about?
When we talk about A.I. development, what actually keeps me up is who gets left out. If A.I. remains concentrated in a few geographies or companies, then inequality will grow, and nations will lose sovereignty. What worries me is making sure countries like Saudi Arabia, and the Global South more broadly, have the infrastructure to own their A.I. future rather than rent it from someone else.
You went from revolutionizing telecom with Rakuten’s Open RAN to leading Saudi Arabia’s $600 billion A.I. venture. How do your telecom insights give you an edge in building A.I. infrastructure that others miss?
Telecom taught me that infrastructure is everything, and nothing is impossible. In pursuit of Open RAN technology, my goal was to focus on the democratization of connectivity to make it more accessible and affordable for the masses. With A.I. infrastructure, I’m using that same blueprint to make A.I. scalable, sustainable and secure.
HUMAIN secured 18,000 Nvidia GB300 Blackwell chips and launched OpenAI’s new open models on day zero. You’re moving incredibly fast for a state-backed company. What allows you to operate at startup speed with sovereign wealth fund resources?
We move fast because our company’s vision, resources, and execution strategy are fully aligned. That alignment eliminates friction. I’m grateful for the trust our leadership places in use, and for the freedom that it’s given our world-class team to focus, build and deliver at speed. When these ingredients come together, speed is the natural outcome.
Your partnerships span Nvidia, Cisco and Groq while building ‘the world’s most open, scalable A.I. infrastructure.’ How do you balance Saudi Arabia’s national A.I. ambitions with maintaining these global technology partnerships?
Our ambitions are bold. To achieve them, we partner with the best companies from around the world. Companies like Nvidia, Cisco and Groq bring world-class capabilities while aligning with the Kingdom’s priorities. We are not just about adopting global technology, but co-creating value and shaping infrastructure that’s globally competitive and deeply rooted in our local needs.
If you were tasked with using A.I. to protect students in schools, what would be your approach, and what key challenges would need to be solved? How might A.I. contribute to prevention and early intervention efforts without creating surveillance environments undermining the educational experience?
I wouldn’t protect them. I’d prepare them. I’d empower them by advocating for curricula that equip them with the critical skills they’ll need to navigate and shape the world ahead: A.I. literacy, coding and real-world problem solving. With this practical training, they won’t need my protection because they’ll have the confidence, skills and mindset they need not just to survive, but to thrive.
