The next Aramco

MBS is trading with China, but his deals with Trump are betting Saudi Arabia’s economic future on American innovation

When American engineers arrived in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province in the 1930s, they came to build an oil industry that would anchor a strategic partnership for nearly a century. The result was Aramco - a joint venture that transformed both nations and reshaped the global energy landscape.

When Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived at the White House today, both countries were chasing something even more ambitious: multiple partnerships across AI, advanced technology, and infrastructure that could define the 21st century as profoundly as oil defined the 20th.

Moving on

For President Trump, the crown prince’s controversial past was so firmly in the rearview mirror that when a reporter asked about the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump quickly dismissed it with a “things happen.” As for US intelligence findings that MBS approved his killing? “He knew nothing about it,” Trump declared, cutting off further questions to avoid embarrassing his guest.

Translation: time to move on.

And move on they have. The crown prince’s seven-year absence from Washington is ending with a red-carpet arrival ceremony complete with a Marine band, officers on horseback, and fighter jets flying in V formation over the White House. There’s also a black-tie dinner in the East Room with all the trappings of a state visit, even if MBS technically isn’t a head of state yet.

MBS has overseen significant social reforms - women can drive, work, travel and even divorce without male permission; religious police have been reined in. There is an undeniable cultural shift in the country. Still, those liberalizations have come alongside political repression.

None of that matters much to Trump, who has never been one to quibble about human rights when business is on the table - for either the United States, or his own family organization which is currently in talks for Trump-branded properties in the Kingdom. But here’s the thing: even Joe Biden - who campaigned on making Saudi Arabia a “pariah state” - flew to meet MBS in 2022 when he needed help with oil prices.

At 40 years old, the crown prince has made himself too powerful for American presidents to cast aside. He controls one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, oversees a strategic partnership that’s lasted eight decades, and sits atop energy reserves that still matter, even as both countries try to build a post-oil future.

The scale is staggering. Trump said the US can count on $600 billion in Saudi investment, a figure announced when the President visited Riyadh in May. Today the Crown Prince said his country “believes in the future of America” and would increase its pledge to almost $1 trillion - though that figure is almost as large as Saudi Arabia’s entire sovereign wealth fund.

The AI imperative

Saudi Arabia is investing $21 billion in data centers alone. The UAE just committed $20 billion to OpenAI’s Stargate project - building a massive AI computing cluster in Abu Dhabi while investing an equal amount in American AI infrastructure. Together, these partnerships represent hundreds of billions aimed at making the Gulf a global AI superpower while strengthening America’s position against China.

The strategic logic is simple: Data centers require energy and advanced semiconductors. The Gulf states have cheap, plentiful energy. The United States controls the world’s most sophisticated chips. Natural fit - assuming the technology stays contained and these summit announcements actually translate into operational facilities.

Major American tech companies - AWS, Google, and others - will establish facilities that serve global markets from Saudi soil. For the United States, locked in technological competition with China, these investments create American jobs in AI innovation while building a Western alternative to Beijing’s subsidized data centers. The Boeing deal signed last year created 140,000 American jobs and 7,000 Saudi positions.

But here’s what makes this complicated: China remains Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner. The Saudis aren’t choosing between Washington and Beijing - they’re trading with China today while betting their economic future on American innovation. It’s hedging with a clear hierarchy: maintain commercial relationships globally, but align decisively with the US on technologies that will define economic power for the next fifty years. Whether that works requires believing the Saudis can keep Beijing’s intelligence services away from America’s crown jewels while selling them everything else.

Powering the infrastructure

All these data centers and AI facilities require massive amounts of electricity, which brings us to civil nuclear energy and uranium enrichment.

The UAE set the “gold standard” by committing not to enrich uranium domestically, eliminating proliferation concerns. Saudi Arabia has been cagier, suggesting for years they wanted enrichment capability - raising obvious red flags about potential weapons ambitions.

But pragmatism may finally prevail. The Saudis and Americans have agreed on the parameters of a so-called 123 agreement - the UAE-type framework for civil nuclear cooperation. The Saudis no longer seem wedded to domestic enrichment if buying enriched uranium from allies is cheaper and faster. What they actually want isn’t uranium enrichment - it’s electricity. Lots of it. Enough to power the data centers, AI infrastructure, and economic diversification projects that Crown Prince Mohammed’s Vision 2030 demands. Nuclear power plants can provide that cheaper than almost any alternative.

This removes the biggest obstacle to nuclear cooperation and provides yet another way the Saudis become integrated into American technology ecosystems.

Breaking China’s mineral monopoly

There’s another critical element: rare earth minerals. The Trump administration essentially asked Saudi Arabia to search its territory for anything on the periodic table that could reduce American dependence on China, which controls 70% of global mining and over 90% of processing capacity.

Turns out the Saudis struck gold - or more accurately, dysprosium, samarium, and components for magnet manufacturing. These aren’t household names, but they’re essential for semiconductor production, electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, and defense systems. China’s dominance in processing some minerals reaches 99%, giving Beijing enormous leverage over American technology and military supply chains.

The Saudis discovered significant deposits while searching for uranium. Now they’re establishing joint ventures with American companies to mine, process, and distribute these materials. Whether Saudi Arabia can actually break China’s processing dominance - built over decades of strategic investment - is another question. But for Washington, any alternative to Chinese control over materials critical to F-35 fighter jets beats the current arrangement.

Defense without treaties

Beyond AI, minerals, and nuclear power, the Saudis want something concrete: a defense agreement cementing American security commitments. What they’re getting falls short of the mutual defense treaty they pursued during the Biden administration - that requires Senate ratification. Instead, they’re pushing for something similar to what Trump gave Qatar after Israel struck Hamas leaders in Doha, but more durable.

That Qatar deal - an executive order treating any attack on Qatar as a threat to American security - could die with the Trump administration. The Saudis want something that survives presidential transitions. It’s clever diplomatic gymnastics: get treaty-like commitments without the treaty process.

What they’ll likely get is defense integration and interoperability - better communication between US weapons systems, streamlined arms sales, formalized training. Trump announced he’ll approve F-35 sales, giving the Saudis America’s most advanced fighter jets - making them the first Middle East country besides Israel to get them. Whether Congress actually allows that sale is another question.

Here’s the calculation that might tip the scales: if the Saudis are investing hundreds of billions in American AI infrastructure and helping break China’s rare earth monopoly, Washington has powerful incentive to protect them. You don’t let massive American technology investments get threatened without response. It’s not a treaty, but it’s leverage.

Saudi anxiety about American reliability is real. Russia’s 2019 attack on Saudi oil facilities barely prompted US response. Israel’s strike on Qatar this year rattled the entire Gulf. The Saudis responded by hedging - hence their defense pact with Pakistan. They want multiple security partners, not just one unpredictable superpower.

The regional agenda

Trump keeps talking hopefully about Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords. The Saudis keep saying yes - eventually - but not now, and not without a clear path to Palestinian statehood. Given that the Israeli government vehemently opposes Palestinian statehood, normalization isn’t happening anytime soon. What the Saudis will do is fund Gaza reconstruction. But they won’t sign anything with Israel until there’s credible Palestinian sovereignty. Trump can keep hoping; the Saudis will keep waiting.

What they’re actually focused on are two crises they feel matter more to their immediate security: Syria and Sudan.

In Syria, they’ve invested heavily in stabilizing the post-Assad government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former jihadist Trump welcomed to the White House days before MBS arrived. The Saudis established a Saudi-US-Syrian Business Council to facilitate reconstruction. The goal is preventing another failed state where Iran, Russia, or jihadist groups fill the vacuum. Trump’s decision to lift comprehensive sanctions creates space for reconstruction.

Sudan is the crisis most Americans know nothing about, but the Saudis call worse than Gaza. It’s across the Red Sea, and its disintegration threatens terrorism, trafficking, and maritime chaos. The Saudis back the Sudanese Armed Forces against the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces, which the US determined is committing genocide. If Sudan falls, the ripple effects across Africa could make the Houthi problem look manageable.

The bigger picture

What’s emerging is a relationship shifted fundamentally from oil-and-security to technology-and-economics. The old bargain - American protection for stable energy - still exists, but it’s being supplemented by partnerships flowing both ways: Gulf capital funding American AI innovation while American technology powers Gulf transformation. If implemented, the agreements being finalized could define how the 21st century’s great power competition unfolds and whether the West maintains technological leadership.

The engineers who arrived in Saudi Arabia’s deserts nearly a century ago couldn’t have imagined they were building an industry that would power the global economy for generations. Today’s partnerships in AI and advanced technology may prove even more consequential - if they actually get built, if the technology stays secure, and if the Saudis can somehow manage trading with China while building America’s technological future.

That’s a lot of assumptions. But then again, so was drilling for oil in the Arabian desert. And just like then, both countries are making a calculated bet: that the promise of economic transformation and strategic advantage outweighs concerns about past controversies, present complications, and future uncertainties.