Saudi Arabia has “a lot of patient capital” when it comes to developing its games industry, according to Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud, the Chairman of the Saudi Esports Federation.

“A lot of people tell me we notice a lot of the investment you’re doing in esports, but we don’t see a lot of the investments you’re making in gaming,” Prince Faisal told Arabian Business Gulf Insights.

“It’s because to build a games industry takes five to 10 years.”

The kingdom, which is currently hosting the Esports World Cup in Riyadh with a record-breaking $71.5 million prize pool, has earmarked $38 billion from the Public Investment Fund for building out the industry via its homegrown Savvy Games Group. 

If there were any doubts about Bahrain’s commitment to pouring $17 billion into the U.S. economy, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa insisted at the White House that “these aren’t fake deals.”

Meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday before joining him for a private lunch, Prince Salman, who serves as Bahrain’s Prime Minister, hailed the relationship between the two countries, which includes Bahrain hosting the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

In response, Trump said he appreciated the investment and admired Bahrain’s ability to pay for it. “You don’t have to borrow the money,” he said.

Nevertheless, the President recalled his swing through the Middle East in May when he was showered with investment pledges from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE that dwarfed what Bahrain plans to spend.

All told, Trump said he came out of the trip with $5.1 trillion in deals, more than twice what was previously announced.

While Prince Salman didn’t spell out Bahrain’s shopping list in defense deals or corporate transactions, Bahraini financial institutions and corporate firms announced plans to invest $10.7 billion in the U.S. That included a $2 billion agreement between Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, and a consortium of American companies in aluminum-related industries.

In addition, Bahrain’s flag carrier Gulf Air is reportedly weighing an order for up to 20 additional Boeing aircraft to modernize its fleet, according to Bloomberg.

Along with the Bahrain visit, Trump hosted a private dinner on Wednesday with Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, which focused on the Gulf state’s effort to mediate hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

The prime ministers of Bahrain and Qatar were set to visit the White House on Wednesday as the two countries roll out billions of dollars in investments with the U.S. government and American firms.

Bahrain’s Premier, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, was scheduled for an Oval Office chat with President Donald Trump in the late morning, followed by lunch. Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani meets Trump for dinner at 7 p.m.

After arriving in Washington on Tuesday, Prince Salman held meetings with Trump administration officials and announced a series of business agreements at a ceremony organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Among the deals was a $2 billion agreement between Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, and a consortium of American companies in aluminum-related industries. Cisco signed a deal to provide digital solutions for Bahrain’s government telecommunications network.

Citing a free-trade agreement between the two countries, Prince Salman said Bahrain serves “as a gateway for American companies to access lucrative regional markets.”

The Prince said New Jersey-based SubCom won a contract to build an 800-kilometer (500-mile) multi-fiber submarine cable linking Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq. He also announced that direct commercial flights would soon begin between Bahrain and New York City.

Qatar, which is acting as a mediator in Gaza talks with Israel, Hamas and the U.S., caused a stir during Trump’s Mideast visit in May, when the Gulf state offered the President a $400 million plane to replace the aging Air Force One.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co., said the sovereign wealth fund is integrating artificial intelligence at every level of its decision-making process, describing AI as a transformative tool that is rapidly strengthening the fund’s capabilities.

Speaking Tuesday at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University, organized by Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, Al Mubarak said Mubadala makes about 40% of its investments in the U.S. and wants to play a pioneering role in the global use of AI.

“What we’re doing a lot of right now is not just investing, but also enabling the technology,” he said while participating in a panel discussion. “When it comes to the enablement of AI, we’re probably, surprisingly, one of the leaders in the world.”

President Donald Trump headlined the summit with an address in which he hailed more than $92 billion in new investments made in Pennsylvania by such firms as Blackstone, CoreWeave and Meta Platforms focused on artificial intelligence and energy infrastructure.

Mubadala is an investor in G42, an Abu Dhabi-based tech firm that raised $1.5 billion from Microsoft last year to work together on AI and build data centers. The fund is also a shareholder in MGX, an investment firm participating alongside OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle in the $100 billion venture announced by Trump in January to fund artificial intelligence infrastructure in the U.S.

At the one-day conference, Blackstone President Jon Gray outlined some $25 billion the firm plans to invest in data centers. He was joined in Pittsburgh by BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Bridgewater’s Nir Bar Dea and a roster of other top corporate executives and cabinet members.

Al Mubarak said Mubadala’s Investment Committee now includes an “AI copilot” that interacts with both committee members and external teams pitching investment proposals. The fund, which manages approximately $300 billion in assets, has increasingly positioned itself as a technology-focused investor, backing AI firms alongside deploying the tools internally. 

“In Mubadala, our AI copilot sits with us in the Investment Committee,” he said. “All the board members, all the Investment Committee members obviously interact directly with the agent and obviously the teams (that are) coming in (and) pitching us.”

The panel in which Al Mubarak participated was moderated by Dina Powell McCormick, the senator’s wife who was Deputy National Security Advisor to Trump in his first term and is now Vice Chairman and President of Global Client Services at BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank based in Chicago and New York.

He described the AI copilot as a powerful analytical tool used to challenge investment propositions and support human judgment.

“What I found now after almost one year of implementation is a huge learning curve, and really that capability is strengthening in a way that is phenomenal,” Al Mubarak said. 

Among corporate leaders at the event were ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, Chevron’s Mike Wirth, Alphabet/Google’s Ruth Porat, Palentir’s Alex Karp and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei.

From Trump’s cabinet, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Energy Secretary Chris Wright attended the forum.

Etihad Airways is preparing to launch flights to several destinations affected by Wizz Air’s exit from its Abu Dhabi operations.

Etihad, which is based in Abu Dhabi, announced on Tuesday that it would introduce flights to Almaty, Kazakhstan; Baku, Azerbaijan; Bucharest, Romania; Medina, Saudi Arabia; Tbilisi, Georgia; Tashkent, Uzbekistan; and Yerevan, Armenia.

Wizz Air currently flies from Abu Dhabi to all of those destinations, except Tbilisi.

The Hungarian budget airline said yesterday that it would suspend its Abu Dhabi joint venture with the ADQ sovereign wealth fund, which owns Etihad, blaming persistent engine issues, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and regulatory challenges.

Etihad said its services to all of the new routes would begin in March, except Medina, which will be operational from November. 

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is taking a critical look at Neom and its banner construction project The Line to decide whether building the futuristic city from scratch is still feasible.

The sovereign wealth fund has asked consulting firms to conduct a strategic review and suggest possible changes amid declining oil prices and concerns that the kingdom can’t afford the 170-kilometer (105-mile) project as originally laid out in 2017, Bloomberg reports.

Neom, the PIF’s umbrella company for The Line and an array of other megaprojects in western Saudi Arabia, issued a statement on Monday outlining its aims in assessing The Line.

“As is typical with large-scale, multi-year projects, strategic reviews are common practice and occur several times over the course of a major development project or infrastructure program,” Neom said. “The Line remains a strategic priority and Neom is focused on maintaining operational continuity, improving efficiencies and accelerating progress to match the overall vision and objectives of the project.”

The review reflects changes in the Saudi economy since the stunning $500 billion Neom development was introduced at a gathering of international investors eight years ago by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Prices for oil, the bedrock of the kingdom’s finances, reached as high as $139 a barrel in 2022 and have since fallen to about $71. Saudi Arabia needs a price of $96 a barrel to balance its budget, and $113 if domestic spending by the PIF on the Crown Prince’s projects is included, according to Bloomberg Economics.

Wizz Air will suspend its Abu Dhabi operations in September after running the budget carrier as a joint venture with ADQ for the past five years.

The Hungarian airline blamed persistent engine issues that grounded its planes, along with geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and regulatory challenges, Bloomberg reports.

Wizz Air Abu Dhabi teamed up with sovereign wealth fund ADQ in 2019 to focus on low-cost flights from its hub in the UAE capital to cities in the Middle East, Africa and India. Five weeks ago, it suffered its worst-ever stock decline amid the airline’s rising costs.

“The more we operate in Abu Dhabi, the more engines we have to ground” because of the hot and harsh environment, Wizz CEO Jozsef Varadi said in an interview with Bloomberg.

With its departure from the UAE, Wizz will focus on its core market in central and eastern Europe, where Varadi said the airline has under-invested because of its concentration on Abu Dhabi and the engine issues. Airline staff in Abu Dhabi will be offered jobs in Europe.

U.S. President Donald Trump will address an energy conference in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Tuesday that is expected to draw some of the world’s most influential investors and oil company executives.

Among those scheduled to attend the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, hosted by Republican Senator Dave McCormick, are Khaldoon Al Mubarak, CEO of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, Blackstone President and COO Jon Gray, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Bridgewater’s Nir Bar Dea, Axios reports.

Also expected at the forum are Dina Powell McCormick, the senator’s wife who was Deputy National Security Advisor to Trump in his first term and is now Vice Chairman and President of Global Client Services at BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank based in Chicago and New York.

Trump and McCormick will use the summit, which is taking place at Carnegie Mellon University, to announce $70 billion in AI and energy investments for the state of Pennsylvania, including thousands of new jobs, according to Axios. Gray will announce a $25 billion investment by Blackstone in data-center and energy infrastructure development in Northeast Pennsylvania, along with a joint venture for increased power generation, the news site said.

Others scheduled to attend are ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, Chevron’s Mike Wirth, Alphabet/Google’s Ruth Porat, Palentir’s Alex Karp and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei.

From Trump’s cabinet, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will attend the forum.