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Powered by its sovereign wealth fund of nearly $1 trillion, Saudi Arabia is backing its new AI firm Humain, entering a highly competitive sector some fear is a bubble ready to burst.The company, launched in May, is bankrolled by Saudi’s powerful Public Investment Fund, which has played a key role in financing the kingdom’s so-called gigaprojects — major developments aimed at boosting and diversifying its oil-reliant economy. Humain this week signed a number of deals during the Future Investment Initiative conference (FII) in Riyadh, where its CEO doubled down on the stated goal of Saudi Arabia becoming the third-largest provider of AI infrastructure, behind the United States and China.But Riyadh’s ambitions to become a global AI hub face fierce competition from the neighbouring United Arab Emirates, which have invested in AI for years, as well as challenges over acquiring advanced US technology, including powerful chips.”Our ambition is really, really massive,” Humain’s CEO Tareq Amin told delegates at the FII conference.Humain has vowed to offer a wide range of AI services, products and tools, along with a powerful Arabic large language model.In August, the company unveiled its debut Arabic chatbot that boasted of being able to comprehend the language’s myriad dialects while also being mindful of Islamic values.  – Deals -On Tuesday, state-backed oil giant Saudi Aramco announced plans to acquire a “significant minority stake” in Humain to scale up operations and “accelerate its growth in the AI sector”, according to a joint press release.Aramco’s President and CEO Amin Nasser gushed over the potential of AI, saying the technology and digitalisation had the ability to double an oil well’s productivity. Humain also signed a $3 billion deal with private equity giant BlackStone’s AirTrunk to build data centres in Saudi Arabia and struck an agreement with US chipmaker Qualcomm.For Robert C. Mogielnicki, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, Humain, like other “nascent” Saudi tech entities, seeks “to assure audiences that the kingdom’s tech ambitions are very real, feasible, and exciting”.”The fast pace of the tech agenda in the neighboring UAE, which is a key regional investment hub, heightens the need to do this,” he added.- ‘Our goal’ -AI-related spending is skyrocketing across the globe, with total investments in 2025 alone expected to reach nearly $1.5 trillion, according to US research firm Gartner.The Gulf’s two largest economies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are vying to secure access to US technology.The oil-producing countries have an advantage in the race to build sprawling data centres — offering ample land, abundant energy supplies and ready access to finance along with backing from authorities.  But many challenges remain. “The kingdom’s capital means little if it doesn’t have permission from Washington buy the advanced chips needed for its data center ambitions — either for training or operating AI,” Vivek Chilukuri, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told AFP. Chilukuri added that Saudi is also facing an acute shortage of AI talent and is competing not only with “more established and well-capitalized US firms” but also with the UAE.There are also concerns over the impact of AI, with companies across the globe shedding tens of thousands of jobs, while economic returns remain uncertain. The spending spree has also prompted painful memories of the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s, when vast investments were wiped out.Yet optimism was in no short supply this week in Riyadh. “It’s exciting to be in this region now because there is so much motivation from the very top levels of government to want to be leaders in AI,” said Adam Jackson, the head of Middle East operations with the tech firm CIQ. “We are not in the AI race to compete,” added a female employee from Humain, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity because she did not have permission to speak to the press.”We are there to be at the top with the US and China. That’s our goal and vision.”

More than 24,000 tons of UN aid has reached Gaza since the start of a ceasefire earlier this month, a UN official said on Thursday while calling for NGOs to be allowed to assist in its distribution.While aid volumes are significantly up compared to the period before the ceasefire, humanitarians still face funding shortfalls, the UN says, as well as issues coordinating with Israeli authorities.”Starting from the ceasefire, we brought over 24,000 metric tonnes of aid through all the crossings, and we have restarted both community- and household-based (aid) distributions,” said the UN Resident Coordinator Office’s deputy special coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Ramiz Alakbarov.The World Food Programme’s Middle East regional director Samer AbdelJaber said in 20 days of scale-up following the ceasefire they “have collected about 20,000 metric tons of food inside Gaza.”Gaza is still in the grip of a dire humanitarian crisis following Israel’s devastating offensive on the Palestinian enclave, which has left tens of thousands of people dead and reduced much of its critical infrastructure and housing to rubble.Looting in the coastal strip was also considerably down, Alakbarov added, easing the distribution of aid.”I’m very proud to say that 15 outpatient therapeutical program sites have been made operational, including eight new sites in the north, with a very commendable effort by UNICEF,” Alakbarov said.”The implementation of the 20-point (US peace) plan remains to be the central point and the central condition for us to be able to deliver humanitarian assistance in a holistic manner,” Alakbarov said.He called on Israel to allow NGOs to participate in the delivery of aid in Gaza.”The persisting issue of registration of NGOs remains to be a bottleneck issue. We continue to emphasize the essential role of NGOs and national NGOs, which they play in humanitarian operations in Gaza, and we have escalated this now,” he said.The US military has set up a coordination center in southern Israel to monitor the ceasefire and to coordinate aid and reconstruction, but aid agencies are pushing for greater access for humanitarian convoys inside Gaza.Israel has withdrawn its forces from Gaza’s main cities, but still controls around half of the territory from positions on the Yellow Line, and has resisted calls to allow aid through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. “The good news is that because of the US brokered ceasefire, we are now getting in a lot more aid than we were able to get in before, we are scaling up as part of our 60-day, life-saving plan,” said UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher in a pre-recorded message.”This is real progress, but it’s a drop in the ocean. It’s just a start of what we’re going to need to do,” Fletcher said that only one-third of the $4 billion flash appeal has been funded.

The Israeli military on Thursday killed a municipal worker in a raid in southern Lebanon, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to order the army to confront such incursions.Israel’s military confirmed the raid, saying it was operating against Hezbollah infrastructure when its forces fired on a “suspect”.Despite a November 2024 ceasefire with the Lebanese militant group, Israel maintains troops in five areas in southern Lebanon and has kept up regular air strikes.An AFP journalist saw bullet holes in the walls and windows of the municipal building in Blida.Early in the day, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli troops “stormed the Blida municipality building, where employee Ibrahim Salameh was sleeping, and enemy soldiers proceeded to kill him”.Lebanon’s health ministry confirmed the death.In the room where Salameh had been sleeping, the floor, blankets and mattress were stained with blood, with the victim’s glasses, papers and cigarettes scattered around.Salameh had been sleeping in the building because he was on duty, said the mayor of Blida, where most houses were destroyed during last year’s war between Israel and Hezbollah.”We heard Israeli soldiers shout, then there were gunshots,” Hisham Abdel Latif Hassan, Salameh’s nephew, told AFP.After Israeli soldiers withdrew, “we found him dead near his mattress”.- ‘Confront any Israeli incursion’ -Village residents cited by NNA said the raid lasted several hours, and that Israeli forces withdrew at dawn.The state-run outlet called the raid “unprecedented”.Aoun instructed the military to “confront any Israeli incursion into liberated southern territory, in defence of Lebanese territory and the safety of citizens”, during a meeting with the army chief, according to a statement from the presidency.Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemned the incursion as “a flagrant aggression against Lebanese state institutions and sovereignty”.The Israeli military said that during an operation to “dismantle Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in the Blida area in southern Lebanon, the troops identified a suspect inside the structure”.It added that “an immediate threat against the troops was identified, and they fired to remove it”, noting the “incident is under review”.The military accused Hezbollah of using the building “for terrorist activity under the guise of civilian infrastructure”.In a statement, Hezbollah condemned the “cold blooded” killing of Salameh and commended Aoun for instructing the army to confront such raids.United Nations peacekeepers deployed in south Lebanon expressed their “deep concerns” over the incursion, calling it a “blatant violation of the Security Council Resolution 1701 and Lebanon’s sovereignty”, referring to the resolution that ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, which the current ceasefire is based on.- New strike -In the nearby border village of Adaisseh, NNA reported that Israeli forces also blew up a hall for religious ceremonies at dawn.Israeli drones were also flying over Beirut at low altitude on Thursday, according to the NNA.Hezbollah first began launching cross-border fire at Israel following the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023, kicking off a more than year-long conflict that culminated in two months of open war before last year’s ceasefire was agreed.Israel, however, has never stopped carrying out air strikes on Lebanon — usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah positions — and has stepped up the attacks in recent days.Its military announced another strike on Thursday, saying it targeted “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure, including a launcher and tunnel shaft in the area of Mahmudiyah in southern Lebanon”.The NNA reported a strike near Mahmudiyah and another on Labbouneh, near the eastern side of the border with Israel.On Tuesday, the spokesman for the UN rights commission, Jeremy Laurence, said Israeli forces had killed 111 civilians in Lebanon since the ceasefire went into effect.Hezbollah was badly weakened during the war, and the United States has intensified pressure on Lebanese authorities to disarm the Iran-backed group.On Wednesday, during a meeting of the ceasefire’s monitors in the Lebanese border city of Naqoura, US envoy Morgan Ortagus said Washington welcomed the “decision to bring all weapons under state control by the end of the year”.The Lebanese army “must now fully implement its plan”, she added.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, dressed in black, rallied in Jerusalem on Thursday to protest against military conscription, an issue that has caused major strain in Israel’s right-wing ruling coalition.The vast crowd were protesting against the absence of a law guaranteeing their right to avoid Israel’s mandatory military service — a pledge long promised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Crowds of men, many wearing black hats, set fire to pieces of tarpaulin as hundreds of police officers cordoned off several roads across the city, AFP correspondents reported.Carrying placards denouncing conscription, demonstrators marched along main roads leading into Jerusalem.The mass demonstration follows a recent crackdown on ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers, with thousands of call-up notices sent in recent months and several deserters imprisoned.Under a ruling established at the time of Israel’s creation in 1948, when the ultra-Orthodox were a very small community, men who devote themselves full-time to the study of sacred Jewish texts are given a de facto pass.This exemption has come under mounting pressure since war erupted in Gaza in October 2023, as the military struggles to fill its ranks.Whether the exemption should be scrapped has been a long-running point of contention in Israeli society, with Netanyahu pledging that his government would pass a law enshrining the waiver.But he has so far failed to deliver.Responding to the call of two ultra-Orthodox parties — one of which forms a key part of the ruling coalition — men travelled from all over Israel on Thursday to demand the continuation of their exemptions.The police closed roads to Jerusalem and announced the mobilisation of 2,000 officers in the city.In June 2024, the supreme court ruled that the state must draft ultra-Orthodox men, declaring their exemption had expired.- Vital support for coalition -A parliamentary committee is now discussing a bill expected to end the exemptions and encourage young ultra-Orthodox men who are not studying full-time to enlist.The issue has placed Netanyahu’s coalition — one of the most right-wing in the country’s history — under severe strain.In July, ministers from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party resigned from the cabinet over the issue, though the party has not formally left the coalition.The other ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism, has already quit both the government and the coalition.The Sephardic Shas, which holds 11 seats in the 120-member Knesset, has warned that it will withdraw support unless military service exemptions are anchored in law —– move that could topple Netanyahu’s fragile coalition, now down to 60 seats.Some ultra-Orthodox rabbis fear that conscription will make young people less religious, but others accept that those who do not study holy texts full-time can enlist. Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 14 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, or about 1.3 million people, and roughly 66,000 men of military age currently benefit from the exemption.According to an army report presented to parliament in September, there has been a sharp increase in the number of ultra-Orthodox Jews enlisting despite opposition from their leaders, but the numbers still remain low, at a few hundred over the past two years.