RIYADH — HUMAIN CEO Tarek Amin used the stage at the PIF Private Sector Forum 2026 to pull back the curtain on how Saudi Arabia’s state-owned AI company was founded and why he believes most global AI efforts are failing.
Rather than give a traditional speech about the potential of artificial intelligence, Amin chose to share what he called “behind the scenes” lessons from his first year at HUMAIN, lessons shaped by execution, infrastructure, and organizational design.
Citing a recent report by MIT, Amin noted that 90-95% of generative AI pilots in enterprises fail.
“This is a fact,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s very little about technology. It’s about mindset and execution.”
From pilot to performance
Amin said companies in Saudi Arabia, Japan, India, China and the United States face the same three structural barriers to AI success.
The first is that business goals are not clear. Many organizations deploy AI without defining the specific problem they are trying to solve or tying implementation to measurable outcomes such as increased productivity, cost efficiency, or increased revenue.
Second, the data is poorly prepared. “Garbage in, garbage out,” Amin said, emphasizing the need for unified data platforms that can support AI at scale.
The third is isolation. AI cannot function as an isolated experiment within the IT department. It should be embedded directly into workflows and owned by business leaders.
“AI is not another technology cycle,” Amin told the audience. “This is a game-changing revolution, but value only comes when we change the narrative from experimentation to execution.”
Birth of a national AI champion
He explained that HUMAIN was established through the integration of AI capabilities and investments under a single national structure, including assets related to Saudi Aramco and Aramco Digital.
The aim was not to build a company that would only serve domestic demand, but a global AI player that could export infrastructure, computing, and intelligence.
“When we started this company, we had a choice,” Amin said.
“You can follow the traditional corporate path, or you can completely reinvent the operating model.” Human chose to reinvent.
AI-native companies
At the core of that reinvention is what Amin calls “AI-native enterprises,” organizations designed around the coexistence of AI agents and human employees.
Instead of relying on multiple legacy IT systems, HUMAIN built a centralized AI agent orchestration platform.
Currently, over 150 AI agents perform a variety of internal functions, all accessed through a single interface known internally as “HUMAIN One.”
Amin revealed that all of his employees are working without traditional desktop applications.
“They’re looking at one interface,” he said. “Why would you need to click an icon to perform a task? It declares your intent.”
Employees can initiate research, manage projects, book travel, and perform administrative tasks through natural language (Arabic or English).
The platform connects AI models directly to business workflows, HR policies, financial systems, and external partners.
Infrastructure as a strategic advantage
Beyond enterprise architecture, Mr. Amin detailed HUMAIN’s position across the entire AI value chain, from infrastructure and computing to frontier models and strategic investments.
The base is HUMAIN Core. A gigawatt-scale data center campus designed for domestic capacity as well as global AI workloads.
“AI is an energy game,” Amin says. “And Saudi Arabia is rich in power, land, connections and water.”
He acknowledged that global technology companies such as Amazon, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, and xAI host or commit AI training and inference workloads on Saudi infrastructure.
He said for the first time that Saudi data centers are being built to serve tenants around the world, not just local demand.
Amin described this as a strategic extension of Saudi Arabia’s energy leadership as it aims to become a major exporter of AI computing and tokens.
Diverse computing and frontier models
On the computing side, HUMAIN has adopted a diversified chipset strategy rather than relying on a single vendor.
The company partnered with AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, while also making early investments in emerging graphics technologies that were later acquired by Nvidia.
In parallel, HUMAIN’s research team is building its own frontier model designed to understand Saudi culture, language, and context, rather than relying solely on open source derivatives.
“We wanted our science team to learn how difficult it is to build frontier models,” Amin said. “This requires a shift in mindset and a change in organization.”
Turn AI into measurable ROI
To demonstrate the real-world impact, Amin presented an internal case study.
In travel management, HUMAIN reduced approximately 65 hours of manual coordination and eliminated multiple full-time roles previously required for reservations, policy validation, and vendor communication.
Through HUMAIN One, employees simply declare their intention to travel, and the system automatically integrates HR policies with travel agency inventory.
Payroll management provided even higher profits. An AI platform integrated with Saudi banking APIs and SWIFT systems runs payroll processes, conducts audits, and dynamically flags discrepancies.
“This is a game changer,” Amin said. “Everything is auditable. Everything is automated.”
These examples, he argued, prove that AI needs to work closely with operational workflows to derive real economic benefits.
Towards Saudi Arabia Operating System
Amin revealed that Saudi Arabia is preparing to commercialize its own operating system, becoming the first country outside the United States and China to do so.
Unlike traditional operating systems such as Windows or MacOS, the envisioned platform will be AI-native, intent-driven, and agent-based.
Amin did not provide any technical details, but hinted that further announcements would be made at future major events.
HUMAIN’s ambitions are clear. It’s about moving beyond the pilots, beyond the hype, and beyond the incremental upgrades to a completely redesigned enterprise architecture rooted in AI from infrastructure to interface.
“We decided not to follow the old path,” Amin said. “We decided to reinvent.”
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