Saudi AI firm Humain launches Allam-powered AI app; to rival Abu Dhabi’s Falcon

Saudi Arabia’s leading AI Humain has announced a conversational AI chatbot built on the Allam large language model (LLM). According to a Bloomberg report, the app called Humain Chat is designed around Islamic values and heritage. It supports conversations in both Arabic and English and can understand several Arabic dialects, including Egyptian and Lebanese. For now, Humain Chat is available only in Saudi Arabia.The report quotes Humain CEO Tareq Amin saying the launch was a “historic milestone in our mission to build sovereign AI that is both technically advanced and culturally authentic,” adding that the app was developed in Saudi Arabia by Saudi talent. The project involved 120 AI specialists, half of them were women.Humain took over Allam from the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), a government agency that had been working on the model with IBM. Around 95 SDAIA employees joined Humain this year as part of the transition.The company said Allam was trained with data and safeguards that reflect the region’s culture and values. Such controls may also allow authorities to regulate what kind of information is shared. The model competes with Falcon Arabic, a similar AI system developed by Abu Dhabi’s Falcon research unit.The launch comes as many global tech firms question whether building advanced AI models from scratch is sustainable. Regional models like Allam and Falcon, however, are seen as valuable because they deliver stronger Arabic-language capabilities and support local research, though they do not aim to rival larger models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.Humain, owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, was formally unveiled in May 2024, just a day before US President Donald Trump’s visit to the kingdom. During that visit, the firm secured semiconductor supplies from Nvidia and AMD for a large-scale data center project.Amin said Humain plans to build 1.9 gigawatts of data centers by 2030. The company is also expanding into ads, gaming, and cloud computing, and has announced plans for a $10 billion venture capital fund to back its AI ambitions.