When it comes to tapping the UAE’s vast wealth, few people matter as much as Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, known as the “$1.5 trillion man.” The trick is access.

After conducting some four dozen interviews, Bloomberg’s Ben Bartenstein on Thursday identified the gatekeepers critical to getting facetime with the Emirati royal, who is the brother of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and runs Abu Dhabi’s largest companies and sovereign wealth funds. He is also the UAE’s National Security Adviser.

Among Sheikh Tahnoon’s key go-betweens is Sofia Abdellatif Lasky, described in the Bloomberg story as de facto CEO of Abu Dhabi-owned Royal Holdings. Other close advisers identified as having the ability to set up meetings are former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri; former U.K. diplomat Bill Murray; and Ajay Bhatia, the CEO of Abu Dhabi’s Sirius International Holding.

ADQ, one of the funds controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon, is pouring a fortune, meanwhile, into Kenya to build up its industrial holdings in East Africa’s largest economy.

On Wednesday, ADQ signed a framework agreement with the Kenyan government to invest as much as $500 million in strategic sectors for both countries including food production, mining, technology and logistics.

Economic growth is the aim, according to Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi, Managing Director and CEO of ADQ: “We are confident that our investment will bring forth notable opportunities that will unlock tangible value… harnessing its vast potential for development,” he said in a statement. 

In 2023, non-oil trade between the UAE and Kenya surged by 26% year-on-year to $3.1 billion. That figure is set to rise further as the two countries locked into a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) earlier this year.

Last month, Kenya signed a preliminary agreement with the UAE to develop the country’s first data center powered by geothermal energy. The 1-gigawatt facility will be built by Kenya’s EcoCloud and the UAE’s G42.

There will be no Max Verstappen or Fernando Alonso in the driver’s seat at races taking place at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi this weekend. Indeed, there will be no driver at all.

The UAE capital will test the region’s supercar fandom with the launch of a brand-new racing league featuring driverless cars, offering spectators free tickets and hoping for a crowd of 10,000. 

The first race for the ASPIRE Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League is scheduled for this Saturday, April 27, with eight teams set to compete, including Code19 Racing, one of the first independent autonomous racing teams from the U.S., and Fly Eagle representing Beijing Institute of Technology and the UAE’s Khalifa University. All are vying for a prize pool of $2.25 million. 

The teams will use identical race cars from Dallara, adapting software algorithms to teach their cars how to drive and push them to the limit on the circuit.

Each car is completely autonomous and the only human intervention allowed at race time is a “kill switch” to bring the vehicle to a stop.

Former F1 driver Daniil Kvyat has also accepted the challenge to race head-to-head with one of the autonomous cars, with the engineering teams hoping to get as close as possible to the human lap time. 

Faisal Al Bannai, Secretary General of the Advanced Technology Research Council, the government-backed parent entity of the league, and Advisor to the UAE President on research and technology said the new league is aimed at positioning Abu Dhabi as a leading hub for innovation.

ASPIRE also has plans for autonomous drone racing and races with off-road buggies and boats.

The Brits will beat a path to Riyadh next month under the banner of a trade expo between the two nations as U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak eyes the trillions of dollars Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is plowing into his Vision 2030 economic diversification plan.

A delegation of more than 750 British and Saudi executives, some from British Airways, HSBC and NEOM, will meet at Saudi Great Futures on May 14 and 15.

The event will launch a year-long campaign to showcase U.K. firms to Saudi investors with a focus on sectors that support the kingdom’s bold economic ambitions, putting a spotlight on opportunities in the kingdom for burgeoning sectors like renewable energy, tourism, gaming and fashion and push the U.K. as a potential collaborator.

The U.K. — and some of its most storied institutions — have long been a destination for Gulf capital. Legendary Knightsbridge department store Harrod’s is owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and the UAE’s Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed is the owner of Premier League football club Manchester City. Qatar and Saudi Arabia’s sovereigns both own a stake in Heathrow Airport. That’s just to name a few. 

A two-way street for trade and investment flows has picked up pace in the last several years as Saudi Arabia has opened up to tourism and mega-projects like NEOM have gotten underway.

Trade between the U.K. and Saudi Arabia has increased to $20.4 billion in 2022 from $15 billion in 2018, Bloomberg reports.

The invitation is open: “We are looking for senior U.K. leaders of businesses, organizations, and educational institutions to join us in Riyadh to participate not only as delegates but as speakers, exhibitors and sponsors, presenting the very best of what the U.K. has to offer,” the Great Future website says. 

Saudi Venture Capital Co. is emerging as the driving force behind Saudi Arabia’s meteoric rise in VC investing. For the first time, the kingdom clinched the top spot last year as the most active investor in the MENA region, a sudden challenger to more mature ecosystems in the UAE and Egypt. VC capital pouring into Saudi startups has surged over 20x between 2018 – the year SVC was formed with backing from the National Development Fund – and 2023, as more deals have been done and check sizes have grown. 

A new report from SVC shows it has invested in 40 funds that have in turn invested in over 700 startups and SMEs so far. Total committed investments have reached over $700 million since its inception and total investments including partners are estimated at $3.6 billion. “This is only the beginning,” Dr. Nabeel Koshak, the firm’s CEO, said in the report. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sees startups and entrepreneurship as linchpins of his economic diversification drive under the banner of Vision 2030, drivers of innovation and job creation. 

SVC is on the rise amid a global slowdown in private capital investing. “Q1 was in no way ecstatic,” Philip Bahoshy, CEO of funding data platform Magnitt, said this week. “Though there were a few big wins, our latest numbers report a decline in almost every metric.” Bahoshy will host a public meeting next week with Sharif El-Badawi, CEO of Dubai Future District Fund, to discuss the state of venture capital in the region and what may lieahead for the rest of the year. 

​​Saudi Arabia is digging deeper to capitalize on the vast mineral wealth beneath the kingdom, according to a new government report. In addition to its vast oil reserves, the country is also sitting on gold, phosphate, bauxite, copper, zinc and nickel. The mineral abundance’s value is estimated at $2.5 trillion, the latest government figures show.

To accelerate exploration and development, the country has poured $182 million in incentives through the end of 2023 with the Saudi Industrial Development Fund covering up to 75% of eligible project costs, according to Vice Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources for Mining Affairs Khalid Al-Mudaifer. The mineral wealth “presents a crucial opportunity to expand non-oil revenue streams alongside the oil and petrochemical industries,” his ministry said on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-biggest oil producer, may well emerge as a critical player in the energy transition amid the discoveries as some of the minerals are linchpins in our current electrification era. As recently as 2022, the potential value of untapped minerals beneath the Saudi desert was put at $1.2 trillion.

The massive exploration efforts have more than doubled that figure in two years. Bob Wilt, CEO of the Public Investment Fund-backed mining company Ma’aden, told The Circuit in January that he believes it is the largest mineral exploration effort underway anywhere in the world. “We just had great luck,” he said. 

Amid clearing skies after Dubai’s record rainstorm, the vision for taxis in the city got a little sharper on Wednesday as London-based Skyports clinched funding to start building the futuristic aircraft’s take-off and landing areas.

Skyports, which is running the project, announced that Spain’s ACS infrastructure company is the lead equity investor in a $110 million Series C fundraising round.

In March, Skyports inked a deal with Dubai and federal regulators as well as U.S. aircraft company Joby Aviation to get Joby’s aircraft into service by 2026.

A spokesperson for Skyports told The Circuit at the time that the four planned takeoff locations – near Dubai International Airport, Downtown, Dubai Marina, and Palm Jumeirah – would cost around $10 million each to construct.

A typical journey from DXB to Palm Jumeirah is expected to take 10 minutes by air taxi compared with 45 minutes by car.

UAE supermarket chain Spinneys said on Tuesday it will sell 25% of its shares in an IPO on the Dubai Financial Market.

The company, which also operates in Oman and plans to enter the Saudi market, expects to start trading in May after a subscription period for investors that ends April 30.

The announcement follows reports that Lulu Group International, one of the biggest retail operators in the Middle East, is planning a dual listing later this year on the Riyadh and Abu Dhabi exchanges.

Rothschild & Co. Middle East is the independent financial adviser for Spinneys, while Emirates NBD Capital, Merrill Lynch and HSBC Bank Middle East are joint global co-ordinators and bookrunners.

Microsoft will invest $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence firm G42, providing one of the biggest inbound investments from an outside player yet and lending credibility to the UAE’s ambitions to become a world-leading technology hub.

The deal gives Microsoft a minority stake in G42 and offers Vice-Chair and President Brad Smith a seat on its board.

“Microsoft’s investment in G42 marks a pivotal moment in our company’s journey of growth and innovation, signifying a strategic alignment of vision and execution between the two organizations,” Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, Chairman of G42, said in a statement.

Sheikh Tahnoon, who also serves as UAE National Security Advisor and Chairman of sovereign wealth funds ADQ and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, was photographed at a signing between Smith and G42 CEO Peng Xiao. 

The commercial partnership is “backed by assurances to both governments” for secure AI development, the companies said, a signal to critics that the U.S.-UAE technology partnership is strong and that G42 has severed ties to China.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, traveled twice to the UAE to talk about security arrangements for the Microsoft deal and other partnerships, The New York Times reports.

The firms also agreed to a further $1 billion development fund to support training an AI workforce and talent pool in the UAE and for the wider region.

“Our two companies will work together not only in the UAE, but to bring AI and digital infrastructure and services to underserved nations,” Smith said. “We will combine world-class technology with world-leading standards for safe, trusted and responsible AI, in close coordination with the governments of both the UAE and the United States.”  

Last month, G42 alongside Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, launched an AI investment company called MGX with the ambition of building up $100 billion in assets under management within a few years.

The fund is reportedly now in early talks with Sam Altman, whose OpenAI is backed by Microsoft, to invest in his multi-trillion-dollar chip venture.