Qualcomm invited analysts to its annual Snapdragon Summit again this year, where the spotlight was shone on the company’s latest processors for both phones and PCs, as well as the role of NPUs (neural processing units) in enabling new on-device AI experiences. My colleagues and I wrote extensively about these announcements here. However, on the final day, a surprise announcement brought forth a totally new narrative: the unveiling of a Snapdragon X Elite-powered PC from an unexpected player, Humain.
For those unfamiliar, Humain is not a traditional PC vendor. It’s a Saudi Arabian AI datacenter company focused on full-stack AI solutions, including its Allam foundation model tailored for Arabic-speaking markets. Earlier this year, Humain made headlines by bringing Qualcomm back into the datacenter space with its Cloud AI 100 Ultra chips. Now, with the Horizon Pro, it’s entering the PC market—but not in the way most would expect.
The PC as a trojan horse for enterprise AI
Humain’s Horizon Pro isn’t about competing with HP, Dell, or Lenovo in the commercial PC space. Instead, it’s a strategic enabler for a broader vision: simplifying enterprise software stacks through a conversational interface called Humain One, layered on top of Windows. This interface leverages the NPU for secure, on-device orchestration of enterprise workflows, with the goal of abstracting away the complexity of legacy applications.
At its core, Humain One seeks to replace HR, finance & legal apps. For example, an employee requests a vacation via the text interface, and the app handles payroll and approvals end-to-end. The company claims that internally, it cut HR from 11 staff members to one plus the AI agent.
CEO Tareq Amin, known for disrupting telecom norms with OpenRAN at Rakuten, made it clear during the Summit: “I really don’t care about making money on the PC itself. The value add is on top of it.” While the Horizon Pro boasts premium hardware features like an OLED display and a high-quality touchpad, the real innovation lies in the software and services model.
A subscription model for enterprise transformation
Humain’s business model centers on enterprise subscriptions, not hardware margins. The Horizon Pro is a gateway to a secure, AI-driven orchestration layer that could reshape how businesses interact with their digital infrastructure. The ultimate goal: To replace some or all of the hundreds or even thousands of apps that enterprises rely on, including many SaaS apps, with agents at a fraction of the cost. It’s a challenging concept to wrap your brain around: replacing Salesforce, Workday, and SAP isn’t straightforward. But if Humain can run its entire company on AI agents, without any legacy ERP, it points to a fascinating shakeup in how enterprises think about computing.
Amin mentioned offerings for students and an Ultra 5G variant, but the core focus remains enterprise transformation and leveraging the unique strengths of access to capital and energy, and agentic local language agents that will create operational workflows and personalize them for an organization and user.
This approach aligns with broader industry trends where NPUs can enable a shift in how we think about PCs—not just as endpoints, but as intelligent, secure nodes in a larger AI-driven ecosystem. The NPU helps this shift, enabling real-time inference, privacy-preserving AI, and new user experiences.
Challenges ahead – and strategic advantages
To be sure, Humain faces an uphill battle. Enterprises are notoriously resistant to overhauling their software stacks, and entrenched players with mature sales channels dominate the commercial PC market. But Humain has a few strategic advantages:
- Regional relevance: Its Arabic-language LLM positions it uniquely for Middle Eastern enterprises, although its ambitions are surely global too given the English language demonstrations provided.
- Government backing: With ties to the Saudi Public Investment Fund, there’s potential for deeper regional partnerships, although Amin said that this model hasn’t been accepted by large PC vendors yet.
- Visionary leadership: Amin’s track record suggests he’s not afraid to challenge incumbents and rethink industry norms.
What to watch next
Humain plans to reveal more at the 9th Edition of the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh in late October. Amin emphasized that partnerships—especially open-source collaborations—will be key to scaling the Humain One platform. While a licensing model for the Horizon Pro hardware isn’t on the table yet, it’s clear that Humain is thinking beyond the box.
This is a horizontal business model approach by a hyperscaler that is looking to disrupt the current marketplace by trying to redefine the user experience. It could be appealing to enable a premium set of devices without having to charge consumers premium prices. It provides hardware and AI as a service for a new set of users who are not bound by legacy workflows and applications. And If the PC is adopted, it could open room for smartphones, kiosks, cameras, drones, and wearables connected to each other and AI infrastructure that Humain is building in the region.
In many ways, this is a small blip on the radar for now. But it’s one worth watching. Like OpenRAN, Humain’s approach forces the industry to rethink assumptions. Even if its hardware market share remains modest, the impact could be significant—especially if it inspires others to reimagine the role of the PC in enterprise AI.
