Saudi Arabia wants to invest $40 billion in artificial intelligence. This is reported by the New York Times (NYT) newspaper, citing three unnamed people in the know. The investment will be implemented together with the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and several US banks. This chunk of money would make the monarchy the largest investor in artificial intelligence.
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Saudi Arabia has become rich from oil. The energy transition could cause these revenues to bubble up to a lesser extent. Therefore, the government has long been working to diversify the economy. Investments are being made diligently at home and abroad. The Public Investment Fund, founded in 1971, is approaching the trillion dollar mark. His current boss, Yasir bin Othman Al-Rumayyan, is friends with Ben Horowitz, the NYT reports. However, the cooperation on AI has not yet been finally decided.
Chips, data centers, start-ups
The money should flow into different areas of the AI chain; According to the report, we are talking about our own AI companies, investments in other start-ups, in chip manufacturers and in data centers. The money tap could be opened as early as the second half of the year. The participation of other venture capitalists should also be considered. Negotiations are also underway to open an Andreessen-Horowitz office in Riyadh, the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia.
For the state, $40 billion wouldn't even be the largest venture capital project in history. Saudi Arabia has already given $45 billion to the Japanese company Softbank twice, for their Vision Fund and Vision Fund 2 respectively. Their development has probably not met Saudi expectations so far. The Softbank funds are now also pumping money into AI projects.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that repeatedly makes negative headlines, not least for the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi (correctly transcribed into German: Jamal Khaschukdschi), the shooting of migrants and the systematic discrimination against women. At around 2.15 million square kilometers, the national territory is a good six times larger than the Federal Republic of Germany. Of the 32 million people who live in Saudi Arabia (2022 census), over 40 percent are foreigners. More than three quarters of the residents are men.
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