OpenAI and Nvidia to bring chips to top of World Government Summit agenda in Dubai

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Artificial intelligence — and the chips that power the technology — are set to take center stage at the World Government Summit next month in Dubai.

Slated to attend the annual gathering of presidents, prime ministers and business executives are OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; Jensen Huang, president of Nvidia Corp., and Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta. 

Altman is no stranger to the region – he is reportedly in conversations with Abu Dhabi-backed AI firm G42 amid efforts to raise billions of dollars to build a network of chip fabrication facilities. News of Altman’s negotiations come as the production of chips crucial to running AI applications is on track to fall short of growing demand. Meanwhile, California-headquartered Nvidia has faced export restrictions of its chips under U.S. regulations.   

The names of the 300 presidents and prime ministers attending the summit will be announced in the coming weeks, Mohammad Al Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs and chairman of the World Government Summit, said at a media briefing on Tuesday. 

Among the attendees already confirmed for the Feb. 12-14 confab at the Madinat Jumeirah luxury resort are Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary-General of the Arab League; Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council; Klaus Schwab, founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum; Haitham Al Ghais, Secretary-General of OPEC; and Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. Private sector leaders including Darío Gil, Director of Research at IBM, will also attend. 

Last year, Al Gergawi memorably interviewed Elon Musk at WGS. The fresh Twitter boss at the time promised to bring on a new CEO – which he did, hiring Linda Yaccarino a few months later. This year is shaping up to be another timely forum on the intersection of government and technology.