Gulf States Pursue Major AI Investments as Sovereign Wealth Funds Bet on Tech Giants

Gulf sovereign wealth funds and state-backed investors have dramatically expanded their AI bets, moving well beyond earlier speculative tech investments into large-scale infrastructure and foundational AI companies. Kuwait's Investment Authority joined KKR, Nvidia, and power company Vistra to launch Helix Digital Infrastructure, a $10 billion venture led by former AWS chief Adam Selipsky that will build data centers, power generation plants, and fiber networks for hyperscalers. Saudi Arabia's PIF-backed HUMAIN invested $3 billion in xAI's $20 billion Series E round, with those holdings subsequently converting into SpaceX shares ahead of the company's anticipated $1.77 trillion IPO. The UAE is constructing the Stargate UAE campus in Abu Dhabi — projected to be the largest AI data center facility outside the United States at 5 gigawatts of compute capacity — developed by G42 in partnership with OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco, and SoftBank at a cost of around $30 billion. Gulf entities also hold positions in Anthropic, which recently raised $65 billion in a Series H round valuing it at $965 billion, and in OpenAI, valued at $852 billion by private investors. Across the broader MENA region, smaller startups in AI, fintech, and digital infrastructure are also attracting capital, reflecting a wider ecosystem build-out that complements the headline sovereign fund activity.