Saudi Arabia is making a significant push into generative AI, with its Humain unit leading a $900 million Series C funding round for Luma AI, valuing the US-based startup at approximately $4 billion. This investment aims to accelerate the development of advanced multimodal AI systems and foundational "World Models". Luma AI will also become a key customer of Humain's Project Halo, a 2-gigawatt AI supercluster being built in Saudi Arabia. This supercluster will provide Luma AI with the infrastructure to train its models on peta-scale multimodal data, significantly more than current large language models.
The funding will support Luma's development of AI systems capable of learning from diverse data types, including video, audio, and text. Luma AI's CEO, Amit Jain, highlighted the necessity of substantial investments to scale in this capital-intensive domain. The company's flagship model, Ray3, is already being used in studios, and the new capital will further support research and infrastructure development to advance AI capabilities.
This investment underscores Saudi Arabia's commitment to diversifying its economy and becoming a leader in the tech industry. The partnership includes Humain Create, an initiative to develop AI models trained on Arabic and regional data, facilitating the adoption of culturally aligned AI across the Middle East and North Africa. The collaboration between Luma AI and Humain signifies a major step towards AI-driven content creation and positions Saudi Arabia as a key player in the global AI landscape.
