Aramco Closes 49% HUMAIN Stake: $2.6B Cash, 3 GW Target by 2030

Saudi Aramco said on Nov. 1, 2026 that it has closed the purchase of a 49% stake in HUMAIN, the Saudi AI company that plans 3 gigawatts (GW) of AI data-center capacity by 2030, with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) keeping 51%.

Aramco buys through a wholly owned subsidiary, according to the joint PIF and Aramco statement on Aramco's newsroom. It contributes about SAR 9.9 billion ($2.6 billion) in cash during 2026, plus AI, compute and digital assets that the release does not value. Arab News, which reported the closing the same day, said the deal formalizes a non-binding term sheet that PIF and Aramco signed on Oct. 28, 2025.

What has closed, and what has not

The stake transfer is complete. The timing of the cash is less clear: the statement describes the $2.6 billion as contributions "in 2026" and gives no payment schedule, so it does not say how much has been paid at closing. It also gives no valuation for HUMAIN or for the transferred assets.

HUMAIN launched in May 2025 and works across four areas: data centers, infrastructure and cloud platforms, AI models including the Arabic-language ALLaM, and AI solutions. Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said the company has realized $11.3 billion in "Technology Realized Value" since 2023, with a significant portion from AI. Aramco said it expects to use HUMAIN's infrastructure in its own operations.

What 3 GW would mean

The release gives the target as a planned deployment of 3 GW of AI data-center capacity by 2030. It does not say whether that is critical IT load or utility supply, which are different numbers, and it names no sites, no power source, no grid connection dates and no capital budget. The $2.6 billion is a shareholder contribution, not a construction budget.

For scale, as Voltgrid reported, Oracle's Project Lighthouse in Wisconsin is designed for 902 MW of computing load and 1.3 GW of total electricity demand. HUMAIN's 3 GW is a company-wide target across all sites, so it is not a single campus. If it were measured on the same total-demand basis, it would be more than twice that Wisconsin campus, but the release does not say which basis it uses.

The one HUMAIN site with public numbers is the Oxagon campus at NEOM. HUMAIN and DataVolt said on Oct. 21 that Nebius could take up to 50 MW, half of the initial 100 MW under construction inside a planned 360 MW first phase, as Voltgrid reported. Arab News said that capacity is expected to become operational in phases from the fourth quarter of 2027. The 360 MW first phase would be 12% of 3 GW, and the 100 MW under construction about 3%. Both ratios assume the two figures use the same basis, which neither statement confirms.

What is not confirmed yet

Several pieces are missing. Neither source gives the value of the assets Aramco is transferring, the list of sites that make up the 3 GW, the generation that will power them, or a year-by-year build plan. The Nebius framework is preliminary and non-binding, and no contract value has been disclosed. Watch for HUMAIN's first binding capacity contracts and for any grid or generation agreement tied to Oxagon, which would show how much of the 3 GW is secured rather than planned.