I believe connectivity is a human right.

>> I felt [music] that this is a great

opportunity to really build and enable a

country like Saudi Arabia that has

incredible potential and capability

>> [music]

>> to really build a digital champion and a

digital hub for the region. This is the

first time I landed [music] in a place

where I feel I'm home.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

Humain's Tarek Amin.

>> [applause and music]

>> So,

I've been spending a lot more time in

the Middle East, in the region.

It's changing so dramatically year after

year.

Um, and I'm going to be I announced on

the podcast 2 weeks ago, I'll be doing

Founder University in Riyadh in November

3rd, 4th, and 5th. And I'm really

excited to partner

with such a dynamic country. Maybe you

could fill us in on what's changed over

the last 5 years in the region. Well,

thank you very much. First of all, I

must say it's the first time I did an

event that's only 45 minutes away from

my home.

Um, my flight from Riyadh, uh, obviously

was 23 hours, but uh, just to give you

some context, um,

I was born in Amman, Jordan before

coming to the US to finish my studies

and, uh, you know, progress in my life

and my career.

>> [snorts]

>> Um, so I moved from Tokyo to Saudi

Arabia, but this is the first time I

ever worked in the region.

And, um, I didn't know what to expect,

you know, um,

you know, sometimes it depends it

depends on your perspective on how you

look at the world, you know, I wanted to

really discover and understand

everything I used to hear under the

massive opportunity of transformation

and the diversification, uh, on the

economy.

You know, my first observation is really

started with discovery of how amazing

the people were in terms of hospitality,

welcomeness. Um, I really felt like I'm

back home. It's it felt very very

different feeling to me.

The second thing, the population is

awfully young and hungry and hungry for

new things and new advancements.

So, um, to me it was really a pleasant

surprise because what I was really

worried about and what everybody keeps

talking about,

um, maybe Tarek have done great things

in his life, talent and opportunity may

be a big challenge in in his new

venture.

And it was remarkable, you know, um, in

every aspect, whether you look at it the

government side, in terms of society,

the transformation.

It has changed dramatically. It's really

really a, um, an area that I feel the

opportunity is remarkable

and the and the embracement of the

society towards looking at the future in

which digital and AI is fundamental to

their transformation. Tarek, can you

maybe explain what Humain is and how it

came to be because it's it was sort of

an evolution, right?

>> Yeah, I mean it's it's, uh, you know,

for for you to know, um, I'll tell you

we take things for granted in the US to

a certain extent.

Let's assume you are a startup here and

you want to access compute, it's as

simple as obviously going to a

hyperscaler and within 30 seconds you're

ready to go.

So, um,

uh, the story is fascinating because my

first discovery, let's say in the role I

was in at the time, I was hired, um, uh,

to really run a subsidiary of Aramco,

uh, a new company that was intended to

diversify out of its core business in

which digital and AI was a really core

component of it.

One of the biggest surprises I had is

lack of AI infrastructure. I mean, I did

not know that,

um, the ability for startups, companies

to access AI infrastructure is a

challenge. I mean, it took Look how

large Aramco is. Took them 9 months from

the process of purchase order, export

control process, deployment,

installation, that means we have

hindered a company

to really achieve its objectives, um, by

9 months. So, that was the first

opportunity that I saw that we need to

address in the country.

I tell you the story because this is how

the Humain story started. So, I started

meeting with several ministers in the

country.

I told them I see nothing but

opportunity. I see something that the

country could really do and participate

at a global space. I think we have an

abundance of land, an abundance of

power, amazing connectivity, um, an an

opportunity to really participate in the

digital infrastructure.

So, um,

last year during my birthday, I get a

call and, um,

it was like really a strange number, so

I answered it. Says,

um, it was from the Royal Court and, um,

it said, uh, His Royal Highness wants to

meet with you.

I said, okay, what did I do?

>> [laughter]

>> It was, uh, uh, so anyway, I we all came

in. I said, what's the topic? The topic

was,

uh, AI brainstorming. And, um, this was

the first time I had the opportunity to

meet His Royal Highness and, uh,

Mohammed bin Salman.

>> Yeah. And let me tell you, it was not

about brainstorming. It was about really

addressing what the country needs to do

to accelerate, to address some of the,

um, fragmentation that exist. And the

idea and the concept of Humain is in

order for us to really accelerate our

development, let us now bring, um,

public and private entity combines and

take AI investments, projects,

initiatives and put in one under one

umbrella company that is really focused

on the entire AI total value chain. So,

um, honestly in that meeting, I I could

tell you took about 10 minutes to come

to realization that the opportunity is

massive, but we need to really unite the

fragmented effort and put our energy

to address the basics.

>> And and you were given a a pretty large

balance sheet to do this with.

>> Yeah, I mean, look, um, I mean, to to

start with, as you know, um, building

infrastructure is not necessarily, uh, a

small task. So, uh, to do this and to

participate and to make an impact, you

need to be very well funded. So, um, you

know, even though we call Humain as a

startup, but it's actually a very well

funded startup.

Between our data center segment, our

models team, applications, um, and also

our ventures that we will soon have in

the United States is,

um, you know, is a very well funded

company

that I'm feeling really comfortable

about the opportunities that we could

capture between capital, people, talent,

and the partnerships.

>> should we think about this as there's,

you know, we live in a world, as you

said, when when you're back home here in

the US, there's AWS, there's GCP,

there's, you know, Azure, it's just

simple, straightforward, but the rest of

the world, little bit more complicated.

Do you see Humain being that competitive

alternative for the rest of the world?

Is that how it starts or Well, I think I

think look at it. In certain areas, we

partner really well and all of them are

colleagues and friends. I mean, I've

I've known the CEOs of these companies

really well through my tenure in Japan

and India.

But I will tell you, I think many

companies do not see the Middle East the

way I see it today and they don't

understand the requirements and the

needs of what we have to do to build the

depth and the talent. So, I see in

certain areas great partnerships

and in certain other areas, I think that

we will be a compelling alternative, but

it doesn't mean that we don't partner.

So, um,

you know, certainly when you see now the

partnerships that we announced with, uh,

the likes of AWS and Google, uh, clearly

I want to see the companies invest in

addressing the lack of infrastructure

that I saw. So, a portion of what we do

today will be built on things with our

own technology and a portion will be

done also with partnerships with the

hyperscalers. And what, uh, give us the

lay of the land from the foundational

model side? The OpenAIs, the Anthropics,

the Groks. Yeah. How is that moving? How

do you work with them? How do you make

sure that, you know, everybody can get

access to the latest models? So, so a

couple of things we have done and look,

um, for people in this audience that

have participated in the build of

foundation model, you know, it's not

trivial and it's not easy.

One of the acquisitions that has

happened in Humain, and this is

[clears throat] where I was really

really surprised to see the depth of

science team I have today in Humain. I

mean, this is the first comment I get in

my social post to say,

yes, you have capital, but there's no

people, no talent. So, we ended up

building a foundation model and I'll

tell you the reason we did this. We

built it from the scratch. It was not

distilled of any open source tool. Well,

for two reasons. I just wanted to see, I

mean, A, let's venture into this to

understand the depth and the capability

of the organization. Second thing, when

it comes to culture, language, and

biases, you know, I felt that it's

important for us to really participate

in this area. So, um, so we launched in,

uh, Saudi Arabia what we call Humain

Chat. I just wanted to see the reaction

from, uh, the people you that uses this

model and the only objective of it,

Arabic first preference is the way we

train this model, not English first

preference.

And, um, And so, I just on that, you see

huge differences in how the foundational

models

Yeah, I mean, process and digest data. I

I think for us, an any model, um, that

is used today,

um, quality of data is always much

better than I think just feeding it

quantity of data.

Our model today has a proprietary set of

data in Arabic language that you cannot

find on the public internet. So, we had

a proprietary data set that was

important. And obviously, within the

Arabic language, the government today

uses all its correspondence,

transactions, translations is in Arabic.

So, the preference of training first in

Arabic is very different than you

starting in English and then you add to

it the Arabic components.

Um so, we built that, we launched it. It

actually now became the number one uh

app in the app store in in the country.

Um it's really really an important thing

for us. And and I'm I'm going to be

really specific that we didn't do this

to say we're better than OpenAI or we're

better than X or better than that.

It was important for us to train the

team on understanding how to build the

entire stack. It's really really

critical. And I and I would tell you

there's nothing else I would do

different than the last 9 months in

building this foundation model. We have

um great partnerships today with um you

know what discussions with OpenAI,

Anthropic we use a lot for our AI coding

tool.

So, I I see this is not an option of use

this or that. I think we are trying to

formulate a strategy on the model, but I

will tell you where we differentiate,

hugely differentiate. I think we have

found the answer that I heard everybody

talking about. I am I am a huge believer

that AI is nothing to a bubble.

And the reason I believe in this, I

think we are one of the few companies

that have found true value realization.

And this is a really a mind-blowing

story.

Um when I took on the CEO role of

Humain, so I had an option to say, how

do you run a large enterprise? Do you

run it the same old way where you have

legacy systems in play? You have

hundreds of IT tools that do the job for

finance, legal, HR, cybersecurity, or

you do something different?

What we have differentiated on, while

I'm excited about the model, is what we

build on top of the model. So, um we

will launch in October this year a

platform we call Humain One. It is truly

the AI operating system for the

enterprise.

Imagine the um

the era, I believe Windows was invented

in 1981. We all got taught that you use

icons on the desktop. If you want to

take a vacation, you go to

SuccessFactors or other HR tool. If you

want finance, go to Oracle SAP.

If you want something else, there's

another tool another application another

icon.

Well, now we change this enterprise

world where really intent-driven system,

multi-agent orchestration system, and

its impact is unreal. What has happened

in driving true value realization?

Um at least in my company, I could tell

you it is remarkable. The efficiencies

now that we have derived out of changing

these legacy systems.

And maybe the biggest challenge that I

had had nothing to do with the

technology, nothing. And this is maybe

my own personal opinion

about the struggles that companies going

to go through as they embrace AI into

their operation. It's the mindset,

mentality, culture, organization. It's

underestimated effort. So, um so yeah,

between the model of what we build, but

I am more excited about what we have

done on top of the model.

>> me ask you a pointed question.

You're in Saudi. There's an enormous

amount of energy, almost a surfeit of

energy.

Do you have this unfair advantage where

if you need a vast

amount of energy to throw at a compute

problem,

do you effectively get it for free or do

you have to pay for it as well? No, of

course not. I mean, look

even though it might seem like I I wish

I could get it for free. I That would

That would change my business model

dramatically.

So, the

uh when I took this role, I think one of

the key things I said, look, what can we

really compete and what can we do to

offer to the world something that the

world desperately needs today?

I think everybody in this room maybe

realize we are really just at the

beginning of what I would call the AI

inferencing world.

While the model training will continue

to evolve, but now as we move into

accelerated compute, I think the demand

is going to become much larger than

exist today. So, how do we And and

what's the challenge? The challenge is

really simple, power. You know, how do

you really find power? So, that's where

I think Saudi Arabia has a big role to

uh to participate. And I was bullish

enough to tell the world, I said,

outside of the United States, outside of

China, I really think Saudi Arabia has a

good shot to be the third largest

country in infrastructure. So, um we

have to go through processes to secure

power from the

Ministry of Energy through the local

electric company. I am treated as fairly

as any other entity that comes to the

country. My rates, my tariff is

equivalent to what Google would get, to

what AWS get. But however,

the energy generation that exists in

Saudi Arabia is just remarkable. I mean,

I think um what I told many people,

um maybe Saudi Arabia today led the

world in energy exports via oil, we

should look at an opportunity to lead

the world through energy exports via

tokens. You know, and but that's really

a a key area that I think we could

differentiate. Is the energy and

infrastructure.

>> Let's talk a little bit about the talent

pool there. The This was shocking to me

when I got there, but so many of the

young people, even up to Gen X, our

generation, uh have been educated in the

West. In fact, the woman who we are in

partnership with uh with Sanabel, um has

a MBA from Stanford

and Oxford and all these incredible

schools. And they've all come back after

these incredible scholarships that are

given

uh by the country.

Talk about the talent that has come back

to Saudi and the application level level

and golden visas as well. Just how open

they are to having companies set up shop

there. And there's a bit of a

competition, is there or not, between,

you know, Doha, Dubai, Abu Dhabi,

Riyadh, Bahrain. There's a really great

competition that's emerging for talent.

And you've got the entire country, all

the nationals, very engaged in starting

companies. Yeah, so um I mean, this is

such an important point because I think

this is um

a key fact that people don't realize

yet.

>> I didn't, yeah.

>> Yeah, the if you look at, you know, 30

years ago, the investment and the

strategy for Saudi Arabia to send many

of their citizens abroad across the

world

to pursue degrees is really paying off

um you know, in a in a really large way.

Um again, back into the example I

mentioned about my um my models team.

I have 40 PhD students as not students,

40 PhD scientists today in my team.

I sometimes, honestly, when I sit with

them, I said, I'm really maybe I don't

have enough credentials to sit with you

guys in the room. But they're graduated

from uh yes, some are for PhD from

Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Oxford, you

know, from anywhere that you want.

They're They're really have obtained now

the foundation knowledge to really take

to that next step. Now, when you talk

about competition, I mean, the beauty

Yeah.

>> When they graduated, was it that they

were thinking about staying in the US,

getting an OPT thing, or was it this

pull to go back and say, okay, we're now

trained, let's go back and help our

mother country. What What is the

motivation of these individuals?

>> a couple things that happened. I mean, I

I mean, this is my own view and I talked

to my colleagues in Saudi Arabia.

I really think that they had a sense of

responsibility to take in the build

process of what tomorrow is going to

look like.

Uh I would have done the same if I was

in their shoes. I would have went back

and really helped into this uh this

build process. So,

um they learned a lot and mostly from, I

would say, United States and uh UK. And

now they all came back looking at the

opportunity because the inflection point

has happened. If you look at the

fast-paced transformation,

it's an opportunity I don't think they

want to miss. It's really changing

rapidly.

>> of that maybe is a desire

to work in the era of MBS? And maybe you

can use that as a jumping-off point to

tell us, what is it like to work with

this person that's young and beloved?

>> So, so a couple of things. I mean, look,

I I'll tell you my my honest opinion. I

mean, first of all, the first meeting

that we had with him, um key observation

and takeaway,

his vision blew my mind. I don't think I

have seen someone with such a bold

vision towards what the future looks

like.

His responsibility to the citizens of

Saudi and the diversification and the

transformation initiatives that are

happening

is second to none. It's really really

incredible. Actually, I uh

I was delayed yesterday. I was supposed

to be here,

but

the man doesn't sleep, really. I mean,

he's he's on all the time

uh thinking about initiatives that needs

to be done and fast-tracking them. So,

um everybody now is really rallied. If

you go into Saudi Arabia today, one

thing that is surprising, you take a

taxi cab or you go to a hotel or you

talk to a government official,

everybody is intertwined with the Vision

2030 mission. Everybody. So, this is

something that rallied the society

around an idea. And the idea has

incredible merits, especially I would

tell you And is it both the old and the

young?

It's I mean, what I'm seeing now across

the board, even when I talk to the older

generation or the younger generation,

this mentality shift transformation has

happened. Now, I'm I'm not representing

everybody. I'm telling you the segments

I'm interacting with. Um I I I nothing

but optimism. But you guys know very

well better than me.

>> such a key point. That was what I took

away from when I started spending time

there over 3 years. I saw the change

every year. The enthusiasm level

reminded me of New York and San

Francisco in the '90s

early 2000s. The opportunity to build

anything, the culture was on fire.

You've got movies and cinemas coming

back and and all this great stuff

happening. And they're so engaged and

they want to learn how to build

businesses. And they've got this real

you know the 2030 mark has inspired

everybody to think, "Well, what can

what's possible?" We we have this

incredible energy business, sure. But,

as they explained it to me,

we can take that energy business and

over the next 5, 10, 20 years, we can

transform this entire region and be a

global leader. And it's really

inspiring.

>> And and to add to your point, look back

into your question about competition.

You know, this is really interesting.

See,

um there's a lot I have learned and I

owe a lot for what I learned in the US,

quite a bit, a lot.

Um I learned innovation here. When I

moved to India, I learned scale. When I

moved to Japan, I learned precision and

quality.

You come to Saudi Arabia and I'm

learning optimism and vision, truly.

And

um

>> Hopeful. You know, I I I

I I I I find it to be really remarkable.

I mean, that's I'm I'm living there

almost full-time. Um and what I have

done, if you come to Humane office

today,

in my opinion, it is no different than a

Silicon Valley office. Not at all, yeah.

>> It did So, I encourage you, come visit,

see how Humane from the basics of the

basics. How the building layout is, how

the open office design is,

to remove barriers and thoughts,

mentalities. And I want now, really, my

team has to become product creator,

not just a reseller. So, that's very

important. Tarek, as you

are building your infrastructure,

there's supply chain and strategic

partnerships and relationships that I'm

sure emerge here in the United States,

but also in China.

And Saudi Arabia seems to be in this

really kind of interesting position as a

large energy supplier, as a large

partner in capital and now in building

that could create tension between the

rivalry, the global rivalry between the

US and China. How do you think about

managing each of those two markets and

how you establish relationships and

where do you align yourself? So, if you

if you see um how Humane was launched,

and I and I wish I could take a small

credit for this, but um

I've asked for one thing before

President Trump came to visit um Saudi

Arabia, we should you know, please

launch the company 3:00 p.m. before.

Because we wanted to see ensure that the

alignment that we are going after, we're

going after really where the innovation

is, uh the talent that exists, the

infrastructure that exists. And let's be

really realistic and truthful.

Today, the US is leading, especially on

the semiconductor side, and we don't

want to miss this opportunity. So, if

you see our partnership that we have

done with AMD, with um a startup called

Groq, uh Nvidia, Qualcomm, it shows you

clearly our commitment to this

relationship and partnership. And it's

really deep. Not only on the silicon

side, but the same thing you're going to

hear very soon on the AI and the

software application. And that's why

Humane to succeed really needs deeper

engagement, relationship. I spend a lot

of time with um

with startups in the US. And um you

know, and as long as to be very honest

with you, the hope and the optimism I

have and and David and the team has been

doing really a great job with this is

our ability to say, "We understand very

very well the concerns that one might

have." But, if you see about my partners

that we have selected from software

layer in the cloud to manage tenant

management, to the security on the data

center, to make sure that these servers

are secured, we will do everything that

is required with the optimism that

Humane will be thought through as a

trusted supplier for um for the US.

David Sacks, how important is the

American and the kingdom's relationship

globally and for humanity in terms of

the the president's

uh agenda and his prioritization? Well,

it's been a critical relationship for

the US and for Saudi Arabia since I

think 1945, if not before, when uh the

the founder of Saudi Arabia, the King

Ibn Saud, met with

uh our president our king, so to speak,

FDR on a battleship and they hammered

out the foundation of the modern world,

which is the US would provide security

for the region in exchange for the

steady flow of crude. And that, you

know, that was I think FDR did that on

his way back from Yalta. And people

don't know as much about that as they do

the Yalta meeting, but that was a very

important understanding. And then the

relationship evolved over the last 80

years. But, what I can tell you, we I

went with the president on the trip in

May to the Middle East and number one,

like you said, the business culture in

Saudi Arabia is very Americanized. Many

of the the the Saudi elite have studied

in the US. Second, they want to have a

good relationship and a and a

partnership with the United States.

There's nothing competitive at all about

that relationship. And third, when it

comes to high-tech and AI, they want to

be part of our technology ecosystem.

When I got back to Washington, I was

really surprised at how controversial it

was that we wanted to do business with

the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia in

particular. The way I see it is very

simple.

Saudi Arabia's going to have data

centers, of course. Uh every sovereign

country that can afford them is going to

have data centers.

Is that going to be American technology

or Chinese technology? It's basically

going to be our uh companies or it's

going to be Huawei.

>> It's binary. And why would we want to

push any country into the arms of

Huawei?

>> Especially when their preference is to

work with America. Well, I think it's

especially for two reasons. One is the

proximity that that region has the 4

billion people. Yes.

>> Cuz if you think about building data

centers, ultimately inferences, there's

a certain window of time and you have to

be under

several hundred milliseconds. But, if

you do that and you draw that radius,

you're counting half the world's

population. We we can't strategically

ignore that. Yeah. Otherwise, you'll be

forced to do it with somebody else.

>> a little Tarek in a second, but just I

think that these restrictions on the

region, they were placed in October of

2023.

And at the time by previous

administration, at the time that

happened, it was justified on the

grounds that the US was the only game in

town. We were the only ones who could

really make advanced semiconductors. So,

therefore, we could impose whatever

restrictions we wanted, nobody would

have a choice. But, since then, if

you're reading the headlines over the

past few months, it's all been about

Huawei, Cambricon, uh SMIC. China is

rapidly advancing um Dylan Patel from um

SemiAnalysis just had a report. By next

year, China's going to be making

millions of chips. Admittedly, they're

not as good as American chips. But, if

we deny the rest of the world the

ability to participate in the American

tech stack, then they will participate

in the Chinese tech stack. And I think

the question of what what we sell to

China will always be a complicated

question for obvious reasons. But, when

it comes to the Middle East and the rest

of world, I think it should be an easy

question that as long as these countries

are abiding by our security requirements

and they want to be partners and allies

of the United States, we should allow

them into the American tech ecosystem

because otherwise we're just creating a

Huawei Belt and Road.

Maybe uh one one uh important thing um

we got approval last year. And and this

is a really really important case study

for you. When we looked at our business

model, actually the number we use is

exactly 4.4 billion

>> 4.4, sure. we could reach within the

tolerance of fiber latency that

inferencing would become really still um

uh ultra responsive.

Um we got approval after a few months on

um a startup in the US. And this is a

classic example. I mean, you could

really validate what I'm going to tell

you now. We supported this US startup.

Look at where they are where they are

now today and what their valuation post

engagement with us.

So, we picked um at that time for

inferencing Groq because I thought it

was really an interesting startup that

could help us democratize the cost of

inferencing.

Out of um the data center that we have

deployed this end, um

we have about 19,000

uh of of their chips deployed.

Overnight, 130 countries are using now

this inferencing cluster. 5% of the

traffic from Saudi, the rest is from

abroad. Why? Because we're able to offer

differentiated inferencing costs.

And we offer to the world. Now, keep in

mind what we also did for security

guarantees, we said, "Groq Cloud, you

manage this." So, now I don't have to

worry about KYC requirement.

You follow US rules. I All what I care

about is I have revenue that I

participate in and it was really a

win-win for both of us. And I hope we'll

repeat the same thing with uh with the

deployment that we're doing with Nvidia

and uh AMD. And then something really

really exciting that we're going to do

with Qualcomm on the edge as well. Thank

you so much for joining us. And I'll see

you at Mamanouri. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank [music]

you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you. I got a

great shawarma place for us.

We're done.