The new CEO of Al Alat Company, affiliated with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which works in the field of semiconductors and artificial intelligence technology, said that Saudi Arabia will withdraw its investments from China if the United States asks it to do so, according to what the agency reported.Bloomberg“.
According to the agency, Amit Medha, CEO of Alat, an investment company backed by a capital of $100 billion from the Public Investment Fund headed by the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said: “Until now the requests were to keep the manufacturing and supply chains separate.” “Absolutely, but if partnerships with China become an issue for the United States, we will withdraw our investments.”
The agency explained that American officials told their Saudi counterparts that they needed to choose between Chinese and American technology because they aim to build a semiconductor industry in the Kingdom, according to “Bloomberg,” which stated that this was “part of ongoing talks on a range of national security issues between the two countries.” .
Meda said in an interview with “Bloomberg News” on the sidelines of the Milken Institute’s global conference in California: “We seek reliable and secure partnerships in the United States, which is our number one partner and the number one market in the field of artificial intelligence, chips and semiconductors.”
Meda added that Alaat will simultaneously announce partnerships with two American technology companies by the end of June, and will participate in investment with an American company. He declined to comment on the companies involved in those talks or whether they are focused on artificial intelligence, chips, or a combination of the two.
The agency stated that Saudi Arabia is competing for regional leadership in the field of advanced technology, with the hope of establishing data centers, artificial intelligence companies, and semiconductor manufacturing.
She explained that the Kingdom’s ambitions come at a time when the United States is increasingly scrutinizing Middle East relations with China, due to concerns that countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE could serve as channels for Beijing to access technology that Chinese companies are prohibited from purchasing from the United States.
According to the agency, the United States has already asked the Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence company G42 to dispose of Chinese technology, in exchange for continued access to American systems that support artificial intelligence applications. This agreement paved the way for Microsoft’s $1.5 billion investment in G42.
Last February, the Board of Directors of Al Alat Company announced the appointment of Amit Meda as CEO of the company, according to Saudi Press Agencywhich explained that Amit “is considered one of the global entrepreneurs, as he contributed to building several companies and leading their transformation during the leadership tasks he assumed in China, the United States, India, Singapore, and other countries.”
According to the Saudi agency, “machines are working to enhance the capabilities of the technical sector, taking advantage of the rapid development witnessed by the sector in the Kingdom, to provide more investment opportunities and empower the private sector through cooperation with leading international companies in the field of technology manufacturing.”
The agency explained that “Alakat will focus on leading the transformation in global sectors, such as electronics and advanced industries, and establishing a manufacturing center with global standards in the Kingdom. The company will also follow sustainable manufacturing practices to help international companies reduce their emissions and accelerate the pace of work towards carbon-free manufacturing.”
Upon his appointment as CEO of the company, Meda said: “Alat’s mission is to transform the global sectors of electronics manufacturing and advanced industries by establishing a sustainable manufacturing center that takes advantage of solar energy, wind energy and green hydrogen in the Kingdom.”
Last December, the agency reported BloombergThe administration of US President Joe Biden forced a venture capital fund affiliated with Saudi Aramco to sell its shares in a startup for artificial intelligence chips in Silicon Valley backed by the co-founder of OpenAI, Sam Altman.
The agency explained that this may have broader implications for the Kingdom’s growing investments in American technology.
Prosperity7, the lead investor in a $25 million financing round for Rain AI in 2022, sold its shares in the startup after a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The sources, who asked Bloomberg not to reveal their identity because the information is private, stated that CFIUS, the main American regulatory body for deals that have national security implications, instructed the Saudi Fund to cancel this deal sometime during the past year.
The United States is working to tighten scrutiny of the activity of wealth funds in the Middle East, as part of increasing restrictions on entities believed to have close ties to China, according to the agency.
Bloomberg News reported that CFIUS is reviewing several multibillion-dollar deals this year due to concerns that they may pose national security risks.
Rain AI, funded in part by Altman, is a startup that designs artificial intelligence chips inspired by the way the human brain works.
Prosperity7 sold its stake in the company to Silicon Valley investment firm Grep VC, according to data firm PitchBook.
Beijing has sought to strengthen relations with the Middle East while tensions have risen with the United States and Europe. In November, China and Saudi Arabia signed a local currency swap agreement worth about $7 billion.
Saudi Aramco, which controls Prosperity7, has also invested billions of dollars in the Chinese energy sector even as the kingdom tries to attract Chinese technology companies, according to Bloomberg.
The sale by Prosperity7, a $1 billion venture capital fund owned by Aramco Ventures, is notable because of the White House’s drive to contain China’s technological superiority. This effort is particularly focused on semiconductors, which will drive future innovations including… That is artificial intelligence, according to the agency.
However, Altman is working to raise billions of dollars for a new AI chip project to compete with Nvidia Corp., and has traveled to the Middle East to raise money for a project codenamed “Tigris,” Bloomberg News reported this month. It was not clear whether Rain AI was related to this effort, and its technology is still in an early stage of development.
While Nvidia dominates the AI chip market, Rain AI and Altman join dozens of startups from Asia to Europe looking to design chips that could be cheaper and more energy efficient.
The United States has banned sales of high-performance chips needed to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence services to China, hindering China’s ambitions to compete in this burgeoning field.
With the advent of GPT chat introduced by OpenAI, there has been concern that data centers creating large AI models would require excessive power.
Rain AI and other chip startups aim to recreate data processing to reduce the need for transfers and lower energy consumption.
While Altman is an early investor in Rain AI, it is not clear whether he is still active in the company or how he is currently pursuing the technology.
