SAUDI Arabian venture capital firm STV launched a $100 million artificial intelligence fund with backing from Google as part of a package of deals announced during US President Donald Trump’s visit to the kingdom.
The fund will focus on early-stage startups in the Middle East and North Africa and support the development of infrastructure, according to a statement. It didn’t disclose the amount of capital put up by the Alphabet Inc. unit.
The partnership was part of a slew of agreements inked on Tuesday between the US and Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, where Trump met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to pursue deeper business and investment ties. Agreements spanned sectors including defense and energy, and were heavy in the AI and tech space.
HUMAIN — the new Saudi Arabian AI firm owned by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund — announced planned investments of at least $15 billion with Amazon Web Services and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Both AMD and Nvidia Corp. are also set to provide HUMAIN with semiconductors to build out data centers.
Saudi Arabia has been positioning itself as a global tech hub under its broad economic diversification drive, investing in everything from AI infrastructure to education and startups.
STV is at least the second Saudi-based VC firm to launch a dedicated AI fund this week. A key area of focus will be on ventures that specialize in the application-layer of AI, it said. –BLOOMBERG
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