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Saudi IT company invests $5m in OpenAI

By Andrew Hammond
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was removed by the company board in November but returned four days later Reuters/Denis Balibouse
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was removed by the company board in November but returned four days later
  • AI investment portfolio
  • OpenAI valued at $86bn
  • Talks with UAE’s G42

The Saudi IT company Al Moammar Information Systems has announced an investment of $5 million in the US artificial intelligence (AI) research company OpenAI. 

Al Moammar recently established a portfolio to invest in international companies in the field of artificial intelligence. 

Bloomberg reported in December that in early January OpenAI would complete a tender offer led by Thrive Capital that would allow employees to sell shares with a valuation of $86 billion. 

The report said that OpenAI was also in early talks to raise a fresh round of funding at a valuation at or above $100 billion and had discussed raising $8 billion and $10 billion for a new chip venture with the Abu Dhabi-based company G42. 

News reports over the past week have said OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, is in discussions with Middle Eastern investors and chip fabricators including G42, Taiwan’s TSMC and Japan’s SoftBank Group. 

Al Moammar said in a Saudi stock market statement that its $5 million investment was obtained through a “private stock sale round of OpenAI employee shares tender offer, wherein the company was valued at $86 billion”. 

Its statement linked the deal, advised by Decisive Capital Management in Geneva, to the AI investment portfolio it announced earlier this month. 

Al Moammar, a listed company formed in 1996, said on 11 January that it would allocate SAR40 million ($10.7 million) for a portfolio to invest in AI companies to “take advantage of growth opportunities in this promising field”. 

The consultancy company PwC’s 27th Annual CEO survey found that three out of four CEOs in the Middle East believe generative AI will significantly change the way they do business over the next three years. 

A quarter of regional CEOs said they expect GenAI will create more jobs and two out of three predicted it would help increase revenue.

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