Saudi Arabia, through its company HUMAIN, is pouring billions of dollars into digital infrastructure buildouts, including data centers, artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure resources, with the aim of becoming a “globally competitive AI hub.”
Their goal of becoming an AI powerhouse could also extend into Africa, with the nation’s company, Vision Invest, partnering with the Africa Finance Corporation to commit $300 million to WIOCC Group, an African digital infrastructure platform to speed up its expansion across Africa.
However, with Iran-backed Houthis attacks occurring in Saudi Arabia, including in the capital, Riyadh, and along its Red Sea coast, can the kingdom and its private sector play a role in helping Africa close its own digital infrastructure gap?
Obinna Isiadinso, a digital infrastructure investor and former principal at Development Partners International (DPI), said that while all eyes are on the conflict, it doesn’t diminish Saudi Arabia’s capacity to conduct business successfully.
“It doesn’t take away from the progress that they have made in terms of trying to shift their economy towards technology and investing in infrastructure. They have invested in a number of different industries and really tried to develop the value chain across a number of different sectors. They have a lot of experience when it comes to digital infrastructure,” Isiadinso told Connecting Africa.
“A lot of that experience and knowledge can be transferred to a lot of African countries that are not as advanced as they are,” he added.
Connecting Africa reached out to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology but didn’t hear back at the time of publication.
Outside of conflict, Isiadinso said the nation is on the rise in its data center capacity.
According to a Bloomberg report, Saudi Arabia is one of the top three destinations for data centers, due to cheap electricity, fiber, land permitting and other factors. Northern Virginia is ranked at number one, and Texas is number two.
Beyond the aid lens
Asked how Africa can move past its idea that it doesn’t need help, Isiadinso argued that the continent is home to roughly 1.6 billion people but currently has less than one percent of global data center capacity.
“There’s clearly something that is very off there, right, when you see those types of numbers,” he said.
According to a 2025 McKinsey report, titled “Building data centers for Africa’s unique market dynamics,” the combined data center capacity of Africa’s five largest markets – which are Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa – is still below 500 megawatts, less than the capacity of France alone.
Isiadinso argued that this is a reason the continent will benefit from the partnership with the nation, adding, “Saudi Arabia is a 250 megawatt market itself.”
He also said the nation’s data center capacity is comparable to a significant share of Africa’s total capacity, highlighting the continent’s infrastructure gap.
Africa’s AI readiness
Sivaramakrishnan Guruvayur, chief AI scientist at Aaquarian.ai, an AI risk consultancy that works with companies on the ethical use of AI, said the opportunity for African countries will depend in part on whether their workforces are prepared for an AI-driven economy.
Guruvayur also argued that talent should be viewed as a matter of sovereignty alongside data, infrastructure and AI models.
“[We need to think about] how AI can be built into the workflows, and training the workflows to prepare them for the next wave of AI economy, right? There are some challenges when it comes to talent and stuff like that,” he told Connecting Africa.
“I would call that talent sovereignty, how we are going to get sovereignty in terms of talent. So, sovereignty is a very big ocean topic. You have model sovereignty, you have data sovereignty, you have infrastructure sovereignty,” Guruvayur added.
Cars drive through Riyadh’s Digital City in September 2026 as Saudi Arabia expands investment in artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure. (Source: Eden Harris)
Cyrus Hodes, a former adviser to Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama, who is the minister of state for artificial intelligence in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), believes the relationship could be mutually beneficial for both Saudi Arabia and Africa, arguing that the Gulf’s ambitions in AI could create opportunities for the continent.
“Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and to a lesser extent Qatar are deploying vast sums to build sovereign AI capacity, and Africa has become a natural extension of that strategy. The GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] has cheap energy and patient sovereign capital, but it lacks the physical footprint to build, staff and operate AI infrastructure at the scale its ambitions demand,” he told Connecting Africa.
“Africa offers land, renewable power, a young workforce and markets that the Gulf states see as theirs to capture before Washington or Beijing does,” Hodes added.
Protecting Africa’s data
Hodes said there are benefits for the continent, but the involvement should be meaningful.
“The opportunity for Africa is there, but so is the risk of becoming a hosting location rather than a participant,” he told Connecting Africa.
He also believes African nations should consider “who controls the data, who sets the rules for the compute, whether local talent is trained or imported” when figuring out governance.
Hodes said that nations on the continent should be deliberate about the local economic benefits when also negotiating AI infrastructure deals.
“Governments negotiating these deals should treat them the way they treat mining or energy concessions, with the same attention to local content, skills transfer and regulatory sovereignty,” he said.
“I worked with the UAE and Saudi governments in the early days of their AI push, and I can say the Gulf states are strategic, fast and serious. African counterparts need to be equally so,” Hodes concluded.
Source: www.connectingafrica.com
