Elon Musk Has One Word As Saudi Arabia Eyes Turning $500B Sci-Fi City Into AI Hub

Saudi Arabia's futuristic megacity project may be heading in a very different direction. And Elon Musk appears to be paying attention.

The Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX chief responded with a single word — "Interesting" — to a post on X claiming Saudi Arabia could abandon plans for ‘The Line’, its proposed 170-kilometer linear city, and instead convert the massive project into an AI data-center hub.

The post, shared by prediction market platform Polymarket, quickly gained traction online and drew Musk's brief reaction — highlighting just how unusual the idea sounds.

From Sci-Fi City To AI Infrastructure?

‘The Line’ sits at the center of Saudi Arabia's $500 billion NEOM development, a futuristic project designed to reshape the kingdom's economy beyond oil.

But speculation that parts of the development could pivot toward AI infrastructure reflects a broader trend: countries are racing to build massive computing capacity to support artificial intelligence.

Saudi Arabia has already begun investing heavily in that ecosystem.

Big Tech Already Has A Foot In The Door

Several major U.S. tech companies are already tied to Saudi Arabia's AI push.

Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is supplying 18,000 Blackwell AI chips for a 500-megawatt Saudi data-center project linked to the state-backed AI company Humain — one of the largest AI infrastructure deployments announced in the region.

Meanwhile, Amazon.com Inc's (NASDAQ:AMZN) cloud division AWS has committed more than $5.3 billion to build a new cloud and data-center region in Saudi Arabia expected to come online in 2026.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is also involved. Google Cloud and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund previously announced plans for a $10 billion AI hub in the kingdom aimed at accelerating artificial-intelligence development.

There have also been AI-chip supply deals involving Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), underscoring how the country is positioning itself as a major buyer of AI computing power.

For now, Musk's single-word reaction offered little insight into what he thinks the potential pivot might mean.

But it underscores the scale of the idea: transforming one of the world's most ambitious urban megaprojects into a massive hub for the infrastructure powering artificial intelligence.

Photo: Frederic Legrand – COMEO from Shutterstock