G42 invests with OpenAI, Nvidia to build massive data center

G42, the UAE’s flagship artificial intelligence company, took a big step in its bid to establish regional leadership in the booming field.

The Abu Dhabi-backed tech company, whose Chairman is National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, announced a partnership with OpenAI on Thursday to build an AI data center with a 1-gigawatt capacity that would make it one of the most powerful facilities in the world.

Among other investors in the Abu Dhabi data center called Stargate UAE – OpenAI’s first major project outside the U.S. – are Oracle, SoftBank, Nvidia, and Cisco.

G42 and OpenAI didn’t disclose a cost for the Abu Dhabi project, although similar projects planned in the U.S. run well over $10 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports. It said the data-center project is the fruit of months of negotiations between the UAE and the Trump administration that culminated in a deal last week to allow the U.A.E. to import up to 500,000 advanced AI chips a year.

Abu Dhabi’s Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, meanwhile, is planning next week’s graduation ceremony, where 104 students from 24 countries will get their degrees, including the six-year-old school’s first Emirati PhD graduate.

MBZUAI’s President Eric Xing told Bloomberg in an interview published today that he hopes to make his school the Stanford of the Gulf, pointing to the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship it cultivates, and its global influence.

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.

UAE welcomes Trump amid anticipation of AI chip deals with U.S.

In the final leg of his tour through the Gulf’s royal palaces, U.S. President Donald Trump landed in Abu Dhabi on Thursday as G42 and other UAE tech firms awaited a green light for billions of dollars in advanced chip deals.

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed greeted the U.S. leader at Abu Dhabi’s exclusive Presidential Terminal after a brief flight on Air Force One from neighboring Qatar. Also on hand to welcome Trump were the President’s brothers, Vice President and National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, who is Chairman of G42, and Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed.

Earlier in the day, Qatar hosted a business conference with Trump in the capital city of Doha and the president talked talked to U.S. soldiers at the Al Udeid U.S. Air Base, which has been an anchor for America’s security alliance in the Gulf.

The U.S. leader woke up in Doha after Emir Sheikh Tamim hosted a lavish state dinner at Lusail Palace on Wednesday night. On Trump’s arrival in Qatar, his motorcade passed sword dancers, parading camels and a royal honor guard mounted on Arabian stallions.

Today’s visit to the UAE is the last stop in his regional tour, which started on Tuesday when he landed in Riyadh and wraps up with Friday’s return to Washington.

Trump and close adviser Elon Musk spent two days in Saudi Arabia, hosted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and holding chats with corporate leaders from such powerhouses as Aramco, the Public Investment Fund, Nvidia, OpenAI, BlackRock and Citigroup.

In Abu Dhabi, where main roads are decked out with neon signs welcoming Trump, the president was expected to announce a preliminary agreement to let the UAE import 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips per year, starting in 2025, boosting the Emirates’ construction of data centers required for the highest level of AI development, Reuters reports.

Twenty percent of the chips will be allocated to UAE tech firm G42, and the remainder will be allocated to U.S. companies like Microsoft and Oracle that are building data centers in the UAE. The deal could potentially extend through 2027 or even 2030, according to the news agency.

The White House said Trump secured deals totaling more than $243 billion with Qatar after leaders from the Gulf peninsula state pledged some $1.2 trillion in American investment. The UAE has committed to investing $1.4 trillion in the U.S. over the next 10 years, while Saudi Arabia said it hopes to reach $1 trillion during Trump’s four-year term.

Among the largest deals was Qatar’s $96 billion plan to acquire as many as 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777X aircraft. The U.S. and Qatari governments also signed off on a $1 billion agreement for Raytheon to provide counter-drone capabilities to Qatar. General Atomics also secured a nearly $2 billion agreement for Qatar to acquire MQ-9B drones.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, meanwhile, defended his country’s offer to Trump of a luxury jet to replace the 40-year-old Air Force One, telling CNN it was not an influence-buying effort.

“It is government to government. The transaction has nothing to do with personnel, whether it’s on the U.S. side or on the Qatari side,” he said, adding that Qatar is ready to withdraw the plan if it’s found to be illegal.

Trump hints at lifting AI chip restrictions ahead of trip to Gulf

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.

Musk’s xAI, Nvidia join with MGX in artificial intelligence fund

The UAE’s biggest tech firms are capitalizing on White House support to tighten partnerships with America’s leaders in the booming industry of artificial intelligence.

A consortium created last year by Abu Dhabi investment fund MGX, Microsoft and BlackRock to finance power-hungry AI data centers welcomed chipmaker Nvidia and Elon Musk’s xAI to the group on Wednesday.

Expansion of the top-level venture came amid the Washington visit by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE National Security Advisor and Chairman of MGX and a constellation of other tech companies, who dined at the White House this week with President Donald Trump.

Sheikh Tahnoon, who held a meeting with Musk through a video feed on Wednesday, has been accompanied through the trip by Khaldoon Al Mubarak, the MGX Vice Chairman and CEO of the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund. Also on the visit is Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of the ADNOC national oil company and the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology. Peng Xiao, CEO of the Abu Dhabi-based AI company G42, joined the call with Musk.

Among the other meetings in his U.S. rounds, Sheikh Tahnoon said he “explored opportunities for collaboration and investment” with Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

ADQ, meanwhile, another Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon, agreed to invest a combined $5 billion in a partnership with U.S-based Energy Capital Partners to build power stations for data centers and AI projects – with the investment eventually reaching $25 billion.

The announcement came as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told the company’s GTC conference in San Jose, Calif., that the industry is preparing for a massive leap in building data centers and chip manufacturing plants with accompanying energy demand.

“Over the next several years, we’re going to be building giant AI factories,” he said. Not normal AI factories … ones you see from space,” Huang said.

Trump gives UAE’s Sheikh Tahnoon warm White House welcome

U.S. President Donald Trump gave a warm reception to UAE power broker Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed at the White House with dinner and a broad review of business and strategic ties between the two allies.

Sheikh Tahnoon, who is the UAE’s National Security Advisor, Chairman of its biggest sovereign wealth fund and brother to President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, led an Emirati delegation on Tuesday that dined with Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other top administration officials.

Accompanied by Mubadala CEO Khaldoon Al Mubarak, ADNOC CEO and UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, and UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba, Sheikh Tahnoon also met with cabinet members including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Tonight, in the White House, I warmly welcomed UAE National Security Adviser H.H. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan to meetings and a dinner with many notable, senior U.S. officials,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social media platform. “The evening demonstrated the long-standing ties and bonds of friendship between our countries.”

Sheikh Tahnoon said in a post on X that the talks focused on the UAE’s “long-term strategic partnership” with the U.S., as well as strengthening economic ties “by accelerating investments in artificial intelligence, advanced technology, infrastructure, energy and health care.”

During his U.S. visit, Sheikh Tahnoon also planned to meet some of the country’s top tech leaders, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Palantir’s Alex Karp, Semafor reported.

While the Emirati delegation was at the White House, the government in Abu Dhabi announced the signing of an agreement with Microsoft and UAE tech company Core42 to improve the efficiency of digital services.

UAE’s Sheikh Tahnoon begins U.S. visit aimed at securing tech ties

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE’s National Security Adviser and one of the country’s most prominent business leaders, starts a visit to the U.S. on Monday with both political and economic dimensions.

Amid concern about tightening restrictions on access to advanced U.S. technology, Sheikh Tahnoon is setting up meetings with a series of top Trump administration officials at the White House, according to a statement from the Abu Dhabi Media Office.

“The meetings will focus on advancing economic and technology ties between the two countries,” the statement said.

“Discussions will also cover ongoing regional challenges and strengthening the decades-long U.S.-UAE strategic partnership.”

The meetings are likely to include Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Bloomberg reported. Whether he will meet with President Donald Trump is unclear.

Sheikh Tahnoon, the brother of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, serves as Chairman of Abu Dhabi’s biggest investors, including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, ADQ and International Holding Co. He also heads the boards of G42, the government-backed artificial intelligence company, and tech investment fund MGX.

A central part of Sheikh Tahnoon’s agenda in Washington will be to press for greater access to Nvidia’s advanced semiconductor chips that are central to development of AI technology, the news agency reported.

MGX is one of the major backers – along with SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle – of a $100 billion AI infrastructure venture that Trump unveiled during his first week in office.

The Daily Circuit: Sliding oil prices + Investcorp acquires Miebach stake

👋 Hello from the Middle East!

In the Daily Circuit today, we’re looking at Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s opening day in Washington, Investcorp’s acquisition of a majority stake in Germany’s Miebach logistics firm, Saudi Arabia’s S&P credit upgrade and the impact of wealthy Gulf collectors on the global luxury watch market. But first, sliding oil prices.

Oil prices are likely to keep falling this year as OPEC+ lifts production limits and Trump administration import tariffs depress U.S. economic growth.

That’s the forecast from Goldman Sachs, which cut its price forecast for the benchmark Brent crude by $5 to $71 a barrel on Sunday.

“The medium-term risks to our forecast remain to the downside given potential further tariff escalation and potentially longer OPEC+ production increases,” Goldman Sachs said.

Other factors affecting oil prices could include the U.S. order to continue attacking sites in Yemen controlled by the Houthis if they continue menacing Red Sea shipping, the bank said.

Citigroup, meanwhile, sees the prospect of oil falling to $65 and a resulting slowdown in drilling for new supplies.

Welcome to the Daily Circuit. Kindly let us know your thoughts and feedback by replying to this newsletter or emailing us at [email protected].

CURTAILING CONSULTANTS

Saudi Arabia is cutting back on handing out fat contracts to foreign consulting firms, challenging an industry that is already under pressure around the world. Among the firms hit by the new practices are Boston Consulting Group, PwC and Roland Berger, Bloomberg reports. The shift in Saudi Arabia derives in part from lower crude prices and widening fiscal deficits. Still, the kingdom has long relied on the expertise of major consulting firms to build mega projects like Neom and can’t carry out its costly ambitions without the help from abroad.

📷 Photo of the Day

Abu Dhabi’s Multiply eyes $1B divestment from PAL Cooling

Abu Dhabi’s Multiply Group may be getting ready to divest from its PAL Cooling unit, which keeps the UAE capital’s skyscrapers at tolerable temperatures under the Gulf’s sizzling sun.

The firm, a unit of Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s International Holding Co., could raise as much as $1 billion if it’s put up for sale, Bloomberg reports.

PAL’S cooling technology involves pumping chilled water into buildings from centralized plants.

Multiply is working with Standard Chartered on the sale, which is at an early stage and has drawn interest from both regional and international investors, the news agency said.

Multiply went public more than three years ago and has investments in companies ranging from Getty Images to Rihanna’s lingerie company.

UAE’s Sheikh Tahnoon meets Thrive’s Josh Kushner on AI

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, one of the UAE’s key corporate power brokers, met last week with Thrive Capital’s Josh Kushner, a major backer of Open AI.

“We discussed the latest developments in artificial intelligence and opportunities for collaboration to advance innovative technologies and solutions that support the growth and prosperity of various sectors,” Sheikh Tahnoon wrote in a Feb. 28 Instagram post.

Joshua Kushner is the founder and managing partner of New York-based Thrive, which invested more than $1 billion in OpenAI and has raised billions more for its venture capital funds. He is the brother of Jared Kushner, founder of Miami-based Affinity Partners and former White House Middle East advisor.

Sheikh Tahnoon is the UAE’s National Security Advisor, in addition to serving as Chairman of several Abu Dhabi-owned businesses that include International Holding Co., the ADQ sovereign wealth fund, Royal Group, First Abu Dhabi Bank and G42.