Finance Associated Press on March 5 (edited by Zhao Hao Shi Zhengcheng).On Monday (March 4), local time, the "LEAP" science and technology exhibition, known as the "digital Davos" of the Middle East, was officially held.
On the first day alone, Amazon AWS and other companies announced that they would invest a total of more than $10 billion in data centers in Saudi Arabia, the host country, to support the development of tech startups in the region.
AWS says it plans to spend $5.3 billion to build a new cloud service region that will open in 2026 and help train local developers. At the same time, Saudi Arabia-based data center company Dat**OLT will invest $5 billion to develop more than 300 megawatts of hyperscale data centers.
In addition, IBM plans to invest 2$500 million for the construction of the company's first software lab in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa); Software company ServiceNow will also invest $500 million to launch its first data center in the region.
AWS executive Prasad Kalyaraman said the latest announcement will provide the highest level of security and resiliency of AWS cloud infrastructure for digital transformation in Saudi Arabia, helping to meet the rapidly growing demand for cloud services across the Middle East.
He added that the new cloud service zones will enable businesses and institutions to unlock their full potential to transform the way they serve their customers, adding, "We look forward to helping institutions, startups and enterprises in Saudi Arabia deliver cloud-powered applications." ”
Speaking at LEAP, Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology, said, "We are proud to introduce AWS, which will make Saudi Arabia the only country in the region to have all hyperscalers. ”
In addition to data centers, artificial intelligence is also one of the key focuses of LEAP. At the conference, Saudi Aramco, the world's most valuable listed energy company, announced the launch of the world's first industrial-grade generative artificial intelligence, "AramcometaBrain".
Saudi Aramco also announced a partnership with Groq, a US-based AI chip company, and Jonathan Ross, founder and CEO of Groq, outlined the collaboration at the conference, "What you're seeing is the fastest language processing unit chip on the planet. ”
Previously, Groq claimed that its LPUs (language processing units) deliver 10 times the inference performance of Nvidia's GPUs (graphics processing units) at one-tenth the cost. With the self-developed inference chip LPU, the generation speed of the large model is close to 500 tokens per second, crushing GPT-35 tokens per second of 40.
In addition, ALAT, a subsidiary of Saudi Public Investment** (PIF), announced that it will join forces with King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) to promote the development of the semiconductor industry in Saudi Arabia.
LEAP also mentioned that EV infrastructure company EVIQ will work with ICT infrastructure provider Tawal to shape the future of electric mobility in the Kingdom.
Finance Associated Press, Zhao Hao, Shi Zhengcheng).