Trump hints at lifting AI chip restrictions ahead of trip to Gulf
The UAE, through its state-owned G42 firm and MGX fund, has placed AI development at the center of its national ambitions to be a global tech leader
White House/X
Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE National Security Adviser, met U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance at the White House in March
Indications that President Donald Trump will modify or even scrap U.S. sanctions on the sale of advanced AI semiconductor chips are building anticipation for his trip to the Gulf next week.
A statement from the Commerce Department in Washington on Wednesday criticized the Biden-era rules – originated to fence in China and extended to a circle of U.S. allies including the UAE and Saudi Arabia – as “overly complex, overly bureaucratic” and a barrier to “American innovation.”
Following up a few hours later in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said: “We might be doing that, and it’ll be announced soon.”
Dubbed the Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, former President Joe Biden issued rules a week before he left office making it more difficult for foreign countries to buy the most advanced chips made by Nvidia that drew the greatest demand from providers of artificial intelligence services and AI developers.
The UAE, through its state-owned G42 firm and MGX fund, has placed AI at the center of its national ambitions to be a global tech leader.
Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE’s National Security Adviser and Chairman of a network of government companies including G42 and MGX, appealed to Trump during a White House visit in March to lift the chip restrictions. One incentive was the $1.4 trillion investment package Sheikh Tahnoon announced that would be spent in the U.S. over 10 years.
The Emirati royal also met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and a constellation of other U.S. tech leaders with whom the UAE has forged billion-dollar partnerships to finance AI development and build massive AI data centers.