The Middle East could account for roughly a quarter of global AI infrastructure spending over the next five years, Thiel Capital Managing Director Jack Selby says.

If geopolitical instability forces delays or cancellations of investments in data centers and other large-scale AI projects, the ripple effects could damage the industry’s highly leveraged tech and infrastructure firms, Selby said in a CNBC interview.

“I think markets have underappreciated how important the Middle East region is for CAPEX spending as it relates to AI and AI infrastructure,” Selby said.

“If the Middle East starts taking some of these projects offline,” he said, “the impact on the market could be much, much, much larger than what is currently priced in.”

LIV Golf is seeking new investors after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund said it will stop funding the league beyond this season because the investment “no longer aligns with its priorities.”

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which has poured more than $5 billion into LIV since 2022, has retreated from a range of other costly projects over recent months, including scaling down its desert ski resort at Trojena and the massive cube-shaped Mukaab development in Riyadh.

Beyond LIV Golf, the PIF said in a statement on Thursday that it will continue to provide backing for “current and future investments in various sports as a priority sector.”

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has hosted LIV Golf events at his resorts, called on the PGA Tour to lift its boycott of players who left for the new league’s sky-high compensation packages.

LIV Golf appears to be closing in on the 18th hole. The Saudi-backed league that once turned professional golf inside out is set to lose its primary funding from the Public Investment Fund after this season, The Wall Street Journal reports.

That would effectively end the experiment that saw billions poured into signing top players and staging rival tournaments, as the kingdom reassesses where sports investments fit into its broader economic strategy.

An announcement by the PIF could come as early as Thursday, the Journal reports.

The New York Times reported two weeks ago that the sovereign wealth fund was planning to pull the plug soon.

LIV is now scrambling to line up outside investors, but any rescue is unlikely to preserve its current scale after years of heavy spending on stars like Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm.

The likely outcome: a downsized version of LIV, or the quiet demise of one of the most expensive failed game changers in modern sports.

Saudi Arabia’s quarterly economic growth slowed to its weakest pace since mid-2024, as the kingdom deals with the impact of the Iran war on oil.

Gross domestic product grew 2.8% year-on-year in the three months through March, according to preliminary data from the General Authority for Statistics – down from 5% in the previous quarter.

The oil sector’s growth eased sharply to 2.3% from 10.8%.

Non-oil activity also slowed to 2.8% from 4.3% in the prior quarter, Bloomberg reports.

“The playbook that the Saudi authorities deployed at the beginning of the crisis allowed them to be more resilient,” said Jihad Azour, the International Monetary Fund’s Middle East and Central Asia director, though the IMF has trimmed its 2025 growth forecast to 3.1%. 

The UAE’s decision to exit OPEC+ may chip away at the bloc’s influence over the oil market, but analysts say it probably won’t topple the 65-year-old organization anytime soon.

The immediate impact is likely to be more limited because the Iran war is already disrupting flows, but over time, the move could weaken OPEC+’s ability to manage production and stabilize prices.

“This exit is not about oil. It is about what oil revenues can build when they are freed from collective constraints,” Karan Gupta, a Director and strategic advisor at EY-Parthenon in Dubai, told The Circuit. It is about positioning the UAE as a strategic partner of choice for the world’s most consequential economies.”

Despite the change, Saudi Arabia and other core members are expected to keep the alliance intact, though the group may become less cohesive going forward. Outside the group, the UAE will have more flexibility to increase output without quota limits, allowing it to expand production capacity and compete for market share.

Once shipping access through the Strait of ​Hormuz is restored, the UAE will no longer be bound by OPEC+ production quotas and ​could gradually raise output, HSBC said in a research note. The bank estimates that ADNOC could lift production ‌to ⁠more than 4.5 million barrels per day, compared with an OPEC+ quota of about 3.4 million bpd for the May 2026 period.

“Signals have been there since Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan became president of the UAE. His agenda made it clear that the country aims to reach 5 million barrels per day of production by 2030,” said Mirco Neri, CEO and Dubai-based Co-Founder of Anvik Capital.

Among the factors that led to the UAE’s leaving OPEC were the continuous missile barrages from Iran, even though it belonged to the organization.

“The fact that a founding member’s aggression against UAE shipping and infrastructure has contributed to another member’s departure after nearly six decades tells you everything you need to know about OPEC’s internal coherence today,” Gupta said.

The UAE’s action may also signal to other members that they should rethink their place in the group, Kristin Diwan, a Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told The Circuit.

“I expect Emirati anger over what they see as a lack of leadership from Saudi Arabia in the Iran crisis has led them to value political accommodation less,” Diwan said. The UAE “will openly pursue their own regional strategy, based on their ties to Israel and the U.S., and are willing to break their connections to Arab and Islamic organizations, which they see as ineffective.” 

OPEC may not collapse, but its authority is gradually eroding and supply quotas are becoming harder to enforce, said Amena Bakr, Head of Middle East and OPEC+ Insights, at data intelligence firm Kpler.

“The group has been a force of stabilization and is needed to avoid constant boom and bust cycles and ensure that investment remains in the upstream sector,” Bakr said. “I don’t think this marks the collapse of OPEC. The group will evolve from here.”

Qatar has introduced emergency support measures to help foreign businesses affected by disruptions from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

The government is providing financial relief, including rent waivers, payment deferrals, flexible tax deadlines, and extended reporting requirements, through the Qatar Financial Center and the Qatar Free Zones Authority.

Invest Qatar is offering up to 40% in support for emergency expenses.

The agency is also holding weekly investment seminars and maintaining a 24/7 hotline. 

The UAE said it is quitting OPEC, delivering a powerful blow to the alliance amid disruptions to the global energy business triggered by the Iran war.

“This decision follows a comprehensive review of the UAE’s production policy and its current and future capacity and is based on our national interest and our commitment to contributing effectively to meeting the market’s pressing needs,” OPEC said on Tuesday in a statement carried by the UAE state news agency Wam.

The split with OPEC and the broader OPEC+ coalitiion, comes as Gulf producers struggle to move exports through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian threats and attacks have disrupted a key global sea channel and LNG transit route. The UAE said its departure will be effective May 1.

Tensions have been escalating since the UAE, the world’s seventh largest oil producer, criticized fellow Arab states for failing to adequately respond to Iranian attacks. Anwar Gargash, an advisor to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed publicly condemned what he described as weak political and military support from both the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League.

“During our time in the organization, we made significant contributions and even greater sacrifices for the benefit of all,” the OPEC statment said, “However, the time has come to focus our efforts on what our national interest dictates and our commitment to our investors, customers, partners and global energy markets. This is what we will focus on going forward.”

The first LNG cargo to exit the Gulf since the Iran war began appears to have been shipped by ADNOC, putting the Abu Dhabi national oil company at the center of efforts to test whether energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz can resume.

Ship-tracking data show the Mubaraz loaded at ADNOC’s Das Island terminal and has now moved beyond the Gulf, marking the first confirmed LNG transit since late February after weeks of near-total paralysis, Bloomberg reports. 

ADNOC declined to comment on the specific shipment. “This is a developing situation and ADNOC continues to monitor developments closely while prioritizing the safety and security of its operations, people and assets,” the company said in a statement.

The massive tanker, which ⁠is managed by Adnoc Logistics & Services and was last seen in the Gulf ​on March 30, has shown up off the west coast of India, suggesting ​it crossed the Strait of Hormuz after several weeks without signal.

Meanwhile, a $500 million superyacht linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexey Mordashov crossed the  Strait of Hormuz over the weekend from Dubai to Oman, raising questions about how it secured clearance, Reuters reports.