What's the Story? Aramco Digital wants to democratize access to AI chips

In this podcast, Light Reading's Iain Morris explains why Aramco Digital CEO Tareq Amin wants to provide 'AI-infrastructure-as-a-service' to customers and democratize access to AI chips, in part by teaming up with startup Groq.

At a Glance

  • Tareq Amin's vision for creating a "Google of the Middle East" (04:31)
  • Aramco Digital launches a new AI-powered operating system dubbed Nour OS (06:57)
  • Why Aramco Digital wants to be an AI-infrastructure-as-a-service company (08:44)

Light Reading's Iain Morris joins the podcast to explain why Aramco Digital is tapping into a $7.5 billion fund to create the "Google of the Middle East." We also discuss how Aramco Digital CEO Tareq Amin wants to provide "AI-infrastructure-as-a-service" to customers and democratize access to AI chips, in part by teaming up with startup Groq.

For a lightly edited transcript, please click the caption button in the video toolbar. 

Here are a few topics we cover:

  • Background on startup Groq (01:02)

  • Tareq Amin takes over as CEO of Aramco Digital (02:48)

  • Amin's vision for creating a "Google of the Middle East" (04:31)

  • Groq's approach to developing AI chips (05:27)

  • Aramco Digital launches a new AI-powered operating system dubbed Nour OS (06:57)

  • Why Aramco Digital wants to be an AI-infrastructure-as-a-service company (08:44)

  • Could startups like Groq pose significant competition to Nvidia? (12:01)

About the Author(s)

Kelsey Ziser

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Kelsey is a senior editor at Light Reading, co-host of the Light Reading podcast, and host of the "What's the story?" podcast.

Her interest in the telecom world started with a PR position at Connect2 Communications, which led to a communications role at the FREEDM Systems Center, a smart grid research lab at N.C. State University. There, she orchestrated their webinar program across college campuses and covered research projects such as the center's smart solid-state transformer.

Kelsey enjoys reading four (or 12) books at once, watching movies about space travel, crafting and (hoarding) houseplants.

Kelsey is based in Raleigh, N.C.

Iain Morris

International Editor, Light Reading

Iain Morris joined Light Reading as News Editor at the start of 2015 -- and we mean, right at the start. His friends and family were still singing Auld Lang Syne as Iain started sourcing New Year's Eve UK mobile network congestion statistics. Prior to boosting Light Reading's UK-based editorial team numbers (he is based in London, south of the river), Iain was a successful freelance writer and editor who had been covering the telecoms sector for the past 15 years. His work has appeared in publications including The Economist (classy!) and The Observer, besides a variety of trade and business journals. He was previously the lead telecoms analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, and before that worked as a features editor at Telecommunications magazine. Iain started out in telecoms as an editor at consulting and market-research company Analysys (now Analysys Mason).

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