In 2015 China launched "Made in China 2025," a strategic plan to transform the world's second largest economy into a global leader in high-tech manufacturing.
The plan prioritizes 10 key areas, including information technology, robotics, aerospace, and new materials.
Half of all industrial robots installed worldwide are being put to work in China, according to the World Economic Forum, and China now leads in AI publications and patents.
Who can forget how the Chinese AI company DeepSeek smacked the tech sector upside the head earlier this year with its flagship chatbot, which promised to deliver the goods for much less dough than its Western competitors — like Nvidia (NVDA) ?
But wait a second. Another country is crowding into China's lane.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and other tech leaders joined President Trump on his Middle East visit.SOPA Images/Getty Images
Analyst: Move over, China. Here come the Saudis.
President Donald Trump kicked off his Middle East trip on May 13, and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives and his team see a new market for Nvidia and the AI revolution.
"Yesterday was a bullish eye-opener for investors in US tech stocks as it's becoming crystal clear the AI revolution has found its next major area of penetration ... Saudi Arabia," Ives said in a research note.
Trump was joined by such tech luminaries as Nvidia’s co-founder and CEO, Jensen Huang; Tesla's (TSLA) CEO and the largest donor to Trump, Elon Musk; Palantir (PLTR) Co-Founder and CEO Alex Karp and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su.
"The theme was clear in Riyadh," Ives said. "The AI revolution is coming to the Saudi Kingdom and Riyadh will be a major buyer of AI chips, software, autonomous/robotics and data centers over the next decade."
Trump’s visit comes on the heels of the announced pause in the U.S.-China tariff war. Ives says the market opportunity in Saudi Arabia "could over time add another $1 trillion to the broader global AI market in the coming years and this dynamic is not being priced into the market and tech names in our view."
Ives said that this is all part of a regional focus in the Middle East, building out data centers and the AI revolution, which will start to vault UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the priority list for US tech companies.
"It also speaks to this global game of high-stakes poker being played by the Trump administration," said Ives.
While restrictions against China acquiring Nvidia's older H20 chip slowing down the AI buildout in Beijing, "we are seeing Saudi getting the best Nvidia next-generation chips with a red-carpet rollout from the rest of the Big Tech world."
"Move over, China ... Saudi now wants in on the AI revolution," Ives said.
Wall Street veteran cites Saudis' available cash
TheStreet Pro's Stephen "Sarge" Guilfoyle said the deals announced on May 13 appeared to cross the tape so fast so furiously that maybe Monty Hall, 23-year host of the "Let's Make a Deal" game show, would have been impressed.
The dealmaking included announcements from Nvidia and AMD, which both unveiled multiyear AI infrastructure projects with Humain, a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund.
"The headline event on Tuesday was the pledge for up to $1 trillion in commercial deals that President Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman touted together," said Guilfoyle, whose career dates back to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in the 1980s.
"Both leaders claimed that Saudi Arabia would invest $1 trillion in the United States, which more or less matches Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product," he added.
Guilfoyle said that GE Vernova (GEV) would be exporting $14.2 billion of natural gas turbines to the kingdom, while Boeing (BA) received orders to export $4.8 billion of 737-8 passenger aircraft to Saudi-based AviLease.
And speaking of Boeing, Trump doubled down on his highly criticized plan to accept a luxury Boeing jet from Qatar.
Alphabet (GOOGL) , Oracle (ORCL) , Salesforce (CRM) , AMD and Uber (UBER) will invest about $80 billion in "transformative technologies" in both nations, the Wall Street veteran noted.
Some people are wondering whether the big numbers will stand up to scrutiny.
"The fact is, though, that a hefty amount of Saudi cash is going to be spent on U.S. business," Guilfoyle said.
Bank of America raised its price target on Nvidia to $160 from $150 and affirmed a buy rating on the shares after Nvidia and AMD announced the Humain projects.
The firm also boosted its price target on AMD to $130 from $120 and maintained its buy rating on the shares.
The firm sized the projects to at around $3 billion to $5 billion annually, or $15 billion to $20 billion over a multiyear period.
B of A says that what it calls "sovereign AI" could help address limited power availability for data centers in the U.S., and also offset headwinds from restrictions on U.S. companies shipping to China.
