The first AWS Cloud Infrastructure Region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will officially launch in December 2026, Amazon Web Services confirmed during the LEAP conference in Riyadh. This deployment forms part of a planned cloud infrastructure investment exceeding $5.3 billion (19.88 billion Saudi riyals), which will expand the global footprint of AWS to 40 infrastructure regions worldwide.
Expansion of the AWS Cloud Infrastructure Region and AI Zone
Alongside the infrastructure rollout, AWS announced an expanded strategic collaboration with HUMAIN, a company owned by the Public Investment Fund. The two entities committed to delivering up to 50 megawatts of capacity in the first artificial intelligence zone in Saudi Arabia by 2028. This dedicated zone will feature AWS Trainium chips and computing hardware from NVIDIA to support AI model training and inference workloads.
Furthermore, HUMAIN will make its ALLAM Arabic large language model available through Amazon Bedrock. The collaboration also brings HUMAIN Fabric, the AI-native data platform component of the HUMAIN ONE operating system, directly to AWS Marketplace for regional and international enterprise clients.
Enterprise Adoption and Data Sovereignty
Local enterprises and public sector entities will have access to local data centers designed to comply with the AWS Digital Sovereignty Pledge. Several major Saudi organizations have committed to running workloads on the platform, including Abdul Latif Jameel, Almosafer, and Red Bull Mobile.
Meanwhile, telecommunications firm stc Group established a strategic collaboration with AWS to speed up cloud adoption across the Kingdom. In addition, ZainTECH entered into a multi-year agreement to assist organizations with cloud migration, compliance, and cybersecurity requirements.
“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.”
Matt Garman, CEO of AWS
Economic Impact and Digital Upskilling
Data from an IDC report commissioned by AWS estimates that artificial intelligence will contribute $130 billion to the Saudi economy by 2030. To support this growth, AWS is investing in workforce development through the Amazon Academy in partnership with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
The initiative provides free education in cloud computing, AI, logistics, and retail to train over 100,000 Saudi citizens. AWS is also working with 11 higher education institutions in the country and aims to train 10,000 women through its Women’s Skills Initiative.
Regional Innovation Hubs
AWS is establishing two innovation centers in Saudi Arabia to provide mentorship and technical guidance to local startups. Consequently, the AWS Cloud Infrastructure Region serves as a core foundation for expanding digital skills and computational capabilities across the Middle East.
