AWS to launch Saudi Arabia cloud region in December 2026
Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.
At a glance
Press release
Official statement
New plan
- Amazon Web Services plans to launch its first Saudi Arabia cloud infrastructure region in December 2026.
- AWS and HUMAIN will make up to 50 megawatts of capacity available in Saudi Arabia’s first AI Zone by 2028.
- The region represents more than $5.3 billion in planned investment and will offer services including Arabic-language AI through HUMAIN’s ALLAM model.
Amazon Web Services plans to bring its first cloud infrastructure region in Saudi Arabia online in December 2026, expanding the company’s local computing footprint as the kingdom pursues its AI ambitions.
AWS announced the plan at LEAP 2026 in Riyadh. In an expanded collaboration with HUMAIN, a company owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, AWS also plans to make up to 50 megawatts of capacity available in the country’s first AI Zone by 2028.
The AI capacity will use AWS Trainium chips and the latest NVIDIA infrastructure for training and running AI systems. AWS said the new region will give developers, startups and larger companies more choice to operate applications and serve users from data centers located in Saudi Arabia. It also described its regions as designed to provide sovereignty controls for customers.
Saudi Arabia is home to some of the most ambitious and inventive builders, from startups and enterprises reimagining industries to public sector organizations deploying AI at scale, and the new AWS region in the country will help them to continue to innovate.
The partnership will bring HUMAIN’s ALLAM Arabic large language model to Amazon Bedrock, allowing customers to access Arabic-language generative AI through the managed platform. HUMAIN Fabric, described as AI-native data infrastructure and part of the HUMAIN ONE platform, will also become available through AWS Marketplace.
AWS CEO Matt Garman said the investment would support innovation, new industries and jobs. Saudi Communications and Information Technology Minister Abdullah Alswaha said the project would help build the computing capacity needed for what he called the Intelligence Age and advance Vision 2030. The region, first announced in March 2024, involves more than $5.3 billion in planned investment and will bring AWS’s global network to 40 regions. An AWS-commissioned IDC report estimates that AI could contribute $130 billion to Saudi Arabia’s economy by 2030.
The launch of AWS’s new region and its expanded partnership with HUMAIN will help accelerate AI innovation, enable new industries, and advance the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.
About this summary
Originally published by Asharq Al-Awsat in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.
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