Mistral and Saudi Vendor to Advance Sovereign AI in Middle East

Mistral is setting its sights on the Middle East, having confirmed a new strategic collaboration with Saudi Arabia’s Humain AI company.The vendor on Monday said it will work with the Riyadh-based company, owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, on infrastructure, the development of advanced models and the rollout of AI across the Middle East.The deal comes just two weeks after Mistral confirmed extensive plans to advance AI sovereignty in Europe, including providing 1GB of compute capacity by the end of the decade.The companies did not provide financial details of the deal.“The companies plan to develop frontier models that perform strongly in Arabic language to help support the broader region,” they said in a statement. Mistral, which specializes in open-weight models, said they are the best option for organizations that want to innovate on their own terms.The companies also said they were working on a joint go-to-market strategy in Saudi Arabia aimed at bringing advanced AI systems to regulated industries, including financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications and cybersecurity.Related:Alibaba Sells More Shares to Raise $10.2B to Spend on AIDelivering AI sovereignty for Saudi Arabia and the region will be at the core of the effort. Mistral said it will explore the use of Humain’s data center infrastructure.The Saudi Arabian company has been building up capacity for some time, having initially agreed to a deal with Nvidia in May 2025. Six months later, Humain revealed that up to 600,000 Nvidia GPUs would be deployed in Saudi Arabia over the next three years.At the same time, Humain said it is working with Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI to develop a network of data centers in the country, anchored by a flagship 500MW+ facility, and made public an agreement with AWS to deploy and manage up to 150,000 Nvidia GPUs in Riyadh, as well as a joint venture with Cisco and AMD targeting 1GB of infrastructure by 2030.Six months later, Humain revealed that up to 600,000 Nvidia GPUs would be deployed in Saudi Arabia over the next three years.The collaboration was unveiled as part of a series of deals between Saudi Arabia and French companies during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to meet with President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.About the AuthorContributing WriterGraham Hope has worked in automotive journalism in the U.K. for 26 years, including spells as editor of leading consumer news website and weekly Auto Express and respected buying guide CarBuyer.