Trump heads home after sewing up $200 billion in UAE deals

President Donald Trump wrapped up his four-day tour of the Gulf with a pomp-filled visit to the UAE, locking in some $200 billion in contracts that starts to fulfill the UAE’s pledge to spend $1.4 trillion in the U.S. over the next decade. He took off for Washington in the early afternoon.

With attention focused on the U.S. leader’s commitment to ease restrictions on selling advanced AI semiconductor chips to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the two countries signed an agreement to build an AI development campus in Abu Dhabi that would be the world’s largest outside the U.S.

Though specifics on the AI tech purchases were not disclosed, Trump and Sheikh Mohamed met together with Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, which is the largest maker of the most advanced chips.

“We’re making great progress for the $1.4 trillion that the UAE has announced that it intends to spend in the United States over the next couple of years,” Trump told the UAE-U.S. Business Forum in an address early today. “This will generate billions and billions of dollars in business and accelerate the UAE plans to become a really major player in artificial intelligence.”

Trump also met with Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and CEO of ADNOC, at the business summit.

Among the deals were a $14.5 billion commitment from Etihad Airways for the purchase of 28 Boeing aircraft and a $60 billion oil and gas deal with ADNOC involving ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, and EOG Resources. UAE officials said today the country will increase the value of its energy investments in the U.S. to $440 billion over the next 10 years.

Before returning to Washington, Trump visited the Abrahamic Family House on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, the monumental prayer compound built by the UAE that contains a mosque, a church and a synagogue.

Gliding into President Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed’s Qasr Al Watan palace grounds on Thursday night for a state dinner, Trump’s motorcade was flanked by mounted camels to the right and Arabian stallions to the left, The Circuit’s Omnia Al Desoukie reports from Abu Dhabi.

The Emirati and American leaders then strode together through the palace’s grand marble halls, where Emirati children waved flags while the national anthems of both countries were played. President Trump was presented by Sheikh Mohammed with the Order of Zayed, the country’s highest civilian award, which was also given to former U.S. President George W. Bush in 2008.

Among the guests at the state dinner were Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed; UAE Vice President; Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi; Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, UAE National Security Adviser; Sheikh Abdallah bin Zayed, the UAE Foreign Minister; and Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE Ambassador to the U.S.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Managing Director and Group CEO of the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, and Peng Xiao, CEO of AI tech company G42 were also present.

Senior U.S. officials at the state dinner included U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Martina Strong, U.S. Ambassador to the UAE.

Du, Microsoft team up on $545M ‘hyperscale’ data center in Dubai

Dubai’s telecom company, du, is collaborating with Microsoft to build a $545 million “hyperscale” data center.

Microsoft will be the primary tenant of the center, which will be built in stages.

Hyperscale centers are facilities used to meet the huge data and storage demands of AI and cloud computing services.

Currently, du operates five data centers across the UAE.

The project was unveiled on Tuesday by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister and Chairman of the Dubai Future Foundation.

“Data is the wealth of the future and the foundation of technological progress,” he said.

Dubai’s Crown Prince joins UAE cabinet as Defense Minister

UAE residents woke up Sunday morning to a big cabinet reshuffle in the federal government.

Following approval from President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid announced the new cabinet, appointing his son Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, marking his first roles in the national government.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed was also named a Deputy Prime Minister.

In recent years, Sheikh Hamdan, often referred to as “Fazza” – he can be found @Faz3 on Instagram, where he has over 16 million followers – has taken on a more public role in the running of the emirate of Dubai, where his father is ruler.

A newly created post of Minister of State for Entrepreneurship has gone to Alia Abdullah Al Mazrouei, herself an entrepreneur and CEO of the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, according to her Linkedin profile. 

Dubai installs Chief AI Officers across government departments

The C-suites have gotten a bit bigger in Dubai’s government offices.

Over the weekend, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, installed 22 Chief Artificial Intelligence Officers across departments that govern areas such as community development, human resources, customs, policing and civil aviation. 

“The appointment of the new Chief AI Officers in the Dubai government marks the initial phase toward realizing our vision for the future of government work,” Sheikh Hamdan said. “We are confident that these officers will intensify their efforts and go the extra mile in translating our vision into reality.”

It is a quintessentially Dubai move. The UAE’s biggest city has long sought to be known for flexible policymaking, a business-friendly environment and smart government services as it looks to lure private sector development, with the likes of Microsoft, Meta and Google taking up regional headquarters in the glitzy city.

The Dubai Future Foundation, which shares an office tower with UAE Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, for example, is a think tank designed to help guide government policy as it gears for the future. 

While Dubai has prioritized business-friendliness and agile governance amid the artificial intelligence revolution, Abu Dhabi has taken a different tact.

The UAE capital, a bit more than an hour south of Dubai, has leveraged its deep sovereign wealth fund pockets to plow cash into government-backed entities, investment vehicles and startups both at home and abroad.

Locally, this has yielded AI champion G42, the applied research group Advanced Technology Research Council and an AI-dedicated research university, the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence.

It has also given Abu Dhabi Inc. a footprint in tech hubs like Silicon Valley, with major investments in companies like semiconductor startup Cerebras and self-driving firm Waymo.