Napster, Nourah Cloud, and Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University Establish EdTech and Embodied-AI Center of Excellence in Saudi Arabia

NEW YORK and RIYADH - September 1, 2026 - Napster , the AI company democratizing access to expertise through embodied, multimodal agents, today announced agreements withNourah Cloud andPrincess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University (PNU) to bring Arabic-native AI agents to the world's largest women's university on Saudi infrastructure. The agreements establish a jointly governed EdTech and Embodied-AI Center of Excellence to localize and deploy Napster agents across the Kingdom's education sector. The Memoranda of Understanding were signed at LEAP 2026 in Riyadh in a ceremony attended by Frank Furnari, Napster Senior Vice President and GM of Saudi Arabia, and Dr. Noha Alessa, CEO of PNU Endowment, in the presence of Dr. Mashael Almutairi, PNU Endowment Secretary-General, and Buthaynah Almasad, CEO of Nourah Information Technology Company.

In January, the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) mandated that all undergraduates at Saudi universities include a cross-disciplinary curriculum in data and AI as part of their studies, with more than a dozen institutions adopting the requirement at launch. Those higher ed programs face a challenge in meeting SDAIA requirements, though: Learner data cannot lawfully leave Saudi Arabia, and any system touching it must satisfy regulations from the National Cybersecurity Authority; the Saudi Data and AI Authority; the Communications, Space and Technology Commission; and the Personal Data Protection Law. Those rules have slowed adoption of AI platforms hosted abroad.

To overcome these hurdles, Napster developed a sovereign architecture designed specifically for the Kingdom's regulatory environment. By deploying its technology on Saudi Arabian infrastructure, the company ensures that all model inference and data processing are performed locally. Nourah Cloud, the cloud platform anchored at PNU, hosts Napster's model and will be central to the delivery of these compliant AI solutions across the Saudi education sector.

"Most AI arrives in a country as a translation of something built somewhere else, and students can tell," said John Acunto, CEO of Napster. "A student should be able to ask a question in her own dialect at two in the morning and get an answer that carries her professor's thinking and her university's context. Napster is providing that opportunity to Saudi students, with local infrastructure that meets the Kingdom's requirements and improves student outcomes."

The Center of Excellence will work across three areas:

• Sovereign deployment: Nourah Cloud will provide the environment and inference on which the Napster platform runs, ensuring compliance with local governance.
• Arabic-native localization: The parties will co-create AI mentors, curriculum digital twins, and courseware written in Arabic from the start, with agents evaluated against Saudi context and dialect.
• Talent development: Napster technology will be embedded into training programs at PNU and across a network of 24 Saudi public universities, building a certified pipeline of AI practitioners and content creators.

The flagship deployment bringsNapster Learn for Higher Education to PNU as a national reference site, giving faculty digital twins that extend their teaching hours and provide interactive, conversational course modules for students. Engagement analytics will also help identify students who are struggling or need additional in-person help. The Kingdom already ranks first globally for female representation among AI inventors and authors, at 32.3 percent, according to Stanford University's 2026 AI Index, and third for the share of university students using generative AI in their studies.

"We educate more women than any university in the world, and Napster Learn gives our faculty a way to reach each of those students, at any hour, for individual mentorship," said Dr. Nuha Aleissa, CEO of PNU Endowment. "This partnership will also provide our graduates key AI literacy skills that companies around the Kingdom are actively hiring for."

Beyond the flagship site, the partners plan to extend accredited use cases to the Ministry of Education and the wider university network over a 24-month rollout.

"These agreements are a step toward Napster's integration with the broader Saudi education system," said Samuel Huber, CEO of MENA for Napster. "Our company will also aim to take learnings from this initiative and apply them across the region, opening new pathways for Gulf countries to improve their education systems with sovereign AI."

Napster will demonstrate its embodied AI agents throughout LEAP 2026 at the Nourah Cloud booth, H1A.C50, at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center.

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About Napster
Founded on the principle of democratizing access, first to music in 1999, now to expertise in the AI era, Napster has consistently remained at the forefront of technological shifts that empower users. Today, the company builds embodied, multimodal AI agents that engage employees and customers where they already work: through video presence, voice, and text. Designed to work alongside people rather than replace them, Napster's agents carry institutional knowledge into every interaction, elevating the user's experience and improving business outcomes. For more information, visit napster.com.

About Nourah Cloud
Nourah Cloud delivers private cloud, multi-tenant cloud, dedicated bare metal, data protection, disaster recovery, and object storage - purpose-built to serve Saudi Arabia's most demanding and regulated sectors.

About Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University
Women's education in Saudi Arabia has received tremendous attention, enabling women to achieve distinguished achievements locally and globally, bringing forth leading female models across fields of science and knowledge.

Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University stands as one of the prominent fruits of this attention. The journey began early with the establishment of the first women's educational college in 1970, expanding to dozens of colleges across the Kingdom. In 1427 AH, a royal decree was issued establishing the first comprehensive university for women in Riyadh, activated in 1428 AH.

In 1429 AH, the cornerstone was laid for the university campus, later named Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, commemorating the sister of King Abdulaziz, to become a leading academic monument reflecting women's empowerment and role in development.

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