Why did Elon Musk and Mohamed bin Salman meet with Saudi officials recently?

Have you ever wondered what Elon Musk and Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman have in common? If so, you must have seen both grabbing headlines as both are at the forefront of transformative initiatives that reshape the future of their respective technological domains.

The recent meeting of Musk and Salman with Saudi officials marks a bold step in solidifying Saudi Arabia's ties with American tech giants and positioning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as a leader in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.

During a high-profile investment forum in Washington, KSA announced a series of joint ventures worth billions with well-known US-based juggernauts, including Musk's xAI.

During the event, Musk outlined plans for xAI to develop a massive 500-megawatt data centre in Saudi Arabia, marking the company's first large-scale facility outside the US. This centre will facilitate the deployment of xAI’s Grok chatbot across the kingdom.

“The future of intelligence will be engineered through massive and efficient computing combined with the most advanced AI models,” Musk stated.

Nvidia founder meeting Musk in Saudi Arabia

This data centre will be running on chips from Nvidia, with founder Jensen Huang joining Musk and Saudi Minister of Communications Abdullah Alswaha onstage. “This is how we walk the talk in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in partnership with the US,” Alswaha noted while highlighting the significance of these collaborations.

Furthermore, Alswaha announced a 100-megawatt data centre for Amazon Web Services, with the aim of managing up to 150,000 AI accelerators in Riyadh.

These measures address the needs of AI companies for space and energy, making Saudi Arabia a subtle alternative to the US and China for data centre expansion.

Saudi Crown Prince's $1 trillion pledge for US

During his Oval Office visit, Salman pledged a $1 trillion investment in the US, a massive uptick from the previous commitment of $600 billion.

Such investments play a crucial role in the Crown Prince’s efforts to improve the KSA's image in the US.