Feb 18 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's Humain, the kingdom's artificial intelligence company, said on Wednesday it had invested $3 billion in Elon Musk's xAI as a part of its Series E funding round just prior to its acquisition by SpaceX.
The investment made Humain a "significant" minority shareholder, with its xAI holdings converted into SpaceX shares, it said.
Saudi Arabia is boosting its artificial intelligence ambitions as it seeks to capitalize on the growing demand for compute capacity and diversify revenue sources away from oil.
The investment builds on the partnership announced between Humain and xAI in November at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum where both firms said they would jointly develop 500 megawatts of AI data center infrastructure.
In January, xAI said it raised $20 billion in an upsized Series E funding round as the company ramps up deployment of new models and infrastructure to get ahead of competitors OpenAI and Anthropic.
A month after the fundraise announcement, Musk's SpaceX acquired xAI in a massive consolidation move that combines the billionaire's artificial intelligence startup with his space and rocket firm.
(Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)
