Saudi Arabian Artificial Intelligence Startup UnitX Scores $2 Million Investment to Expand Team

UnitX, a Saudi-based artificial intelligence (AI) and supercomputing startup backed from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), just raised an investment of $2 million co-led by KAUST’s Innovation Fund and Saudi Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures fund. 

The joint funding will support UnitX’s rapid team expansion and their mission to leverage supercomputing technology and high-performance data analytics to facilitate data-driven decisions, reduce IT spending and meet the growing client demands as well as prominence in the global market. Additionally, the funding will support the startup’s business development for large financial and retail clients as well as SMEs and another target set with their decision to expand and serve government, supply chain, and oil and gas industry stakeholders.

“UnitX is an agile company. We are breaking the barriers of skill and access to supercomputers – which are traditionally expensive beyond the reach of most companies – and partnering with institutions that have unused supercomputing power. We then make this spare capacity available to the companies on our platform in a manner that is easy to use,” says Kiran Narayanan, UnitX’s Co-founder and CEO. “UnitX is excited to have Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures and the KAUST Innovation Fund onboard as investors. With their support we will be able to generate value both locally in Saudi Arabia, expand globally and innovative further,” adds Narayanan.

UnitX delivers an accessible solution for companies seeking a scalable and affordable window into the big compute infrastructure. The startup’s modular product ‘UnitXTM Sentient’ docks ready-to-deploy applications and workflows for Artficial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) that with a click of a button can be launched effectively on suitable hardware such as public clouds. Additionally, UnitX’s proprietary AI algorithms select the best resources for each end-user, which is also docked on the platform to ensure total security.

Since the platform went public in May 2019, it has established supercomputing partnerships with KAUST and Virtual Integrated Analytics Solutions (VIAS). The startup was also a finalist in Startup Istanbul in 2018, winner of the Arabnet competition in Riyadh in 2018, and chosen as one of the Saudi finalists in the Entrepreneurship World Cup in June 2019.

“UnitX is bridging a new frontier in advancing big computer power and making it more accessible to sectors that have previously been unable to access the benefits of supercomputing. At KAUST, we’re actively investing in startups and technology that are shaping industry 4.0, and UnitX is deep-tech startup at the forefront of this revolution,” says Tamer Osman, Head of the KAUST Innovation Fund.

According to figures from the International Data Corporation (IDC), the market demand for supercomputing is currently valued at $224 billion with a 25% year-on-year growth projection. With the great power that AI-based technology leverages, successful AI adoption requires scale to perform big compute and big data tasks. However, modern supercomputers are specialised machines that simultaneously performs both tasks efficiently and much faster than public clouds but can cost a tremendous amount of money to own and operate, making it only accessible by certain entities such as large corporations, universities and government facilities. UnitX democratizes supercomputing by partnering up with institutions that possess the necessary capabilities and converting it to an effective and easy-to-use cloud models to clients in traditionally undeserved industries both in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and worldwide.