Nvidia sending 18,000 of its top AI chips to Saudi Arabia

Nvidia will sell over 18,000 of its latest artificial intelligence chips to Saudi Arabian company Humain, CEO Jensen Huang announced on Tuesday.

The announcement was made as part of a White House-led trip to the region that includes President Donald Trump and other top CEOs.

The cutting-edge Blackwell chips will be used in a 500 megawatt data center in Saudi Arabia, according to remarks at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh on Tuesday. Nvidia said its first deployment will use its GB300 Blackwell chips, which are among Nvidia's most advanced AI chips at the moment, and which were only officially announced earlier this year.

Tuesday's announcement underscores the importance of Nvidia's chips as a bargaining tool for the Trump administration as countries around the world clamor for the devices, which are used to train and deploy advanced AI software such as ChatGPT.

"I am so delighted to be here to help celebrate the grand opening, the beginning of Humain," Huang said. "It is an incredible vision, indeed, that Saudi Arabia should build the AI infrastructure of your nation so that you could participate and help shape the future of this incredibly transformative technology."

Nvidia shares rose 4% in trading on Tuesday.

Last week, the Department of Commerce said that it was going to scrap what it called President Joe Biden's rule, and implement a "much simpler rule." Nvidia has also been required to seek an export license for its AI chips since 2023 because of national security concerns.

Humain will be owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, and will work on developing AI models as well as building data center infrastructure, according to a press release. Humain's plans eventually include deploying "several hundred thousand" Nvidia GPUs.

"Saudi Arabia is rich with energy, transforming the energy through this giant versions of these Nvidia AI supercomputers, which are essentially AI factories," Huang said.