The United Arab Emirates and the United States have signed a deal for the UAE to build the biggest artificial intelligence campus outside the US. This was one of several AI-related agreements made during Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East.
However, the deal has also caused concern because it would have faced limits under the previous US government due to worries that China might get access to the technology.
The deal to build the AI campus will give the UAE greater access to powerful AI chips. Although the US and UAE didn’t say exactly which chips will be used, sources told Reuters that starting in 2025, the UAE might be allowed to buy up to 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips yearly.
On Thursday, Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, was seen on TV talking with Donald Trump and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at a palace in Abu Dhabi.
The deal is a big success for the UAE, which has been trying to maintain good ties with the US, its longtime ally, and China, its biggest trading partner. The UAE has been investing billions in AI to become a global leader. However, it had limited access to US-made chips while Joe Biden was president.
The deal shows that the Trump administration trusts the chips can be kept secure, partly because US companies will run the data centers.
The US has been a leader in AI technology, but China has become a strong competitor in the past year. Even though Trump is confident, some people worry that dealing with Gulf countries could weaken the US’s control over this fast-growing technology. There’s also concern that China might find a way to access these data centers.
Top AI and chip company CEOs, like Sam Altman from OpenAI and Jensen Huang from Nvidia, supported the deal. It could help their products reach more people worldwide, and they could make a lot of money from it.
The AI agreement “includes the UAE committing to invest in, build or finance US data centers that are at least as large and as powerful as those in the UAE,” the White House said.
“The agreement also contains historic commitments by the UAE to further align their national security regulations with the United States, including strong protections to prevent the diversion of US-origin technology.”
At the heart of the deal announced on Thursday is a large AI campus in Abu Dhabi, covering 10 square miles (about 26 square kilometers). According to the US Commerce Department, it will have enough power—5 gigawatts—to support major AI data centers.
The AI campus will be built by G42, a company the Abu Dhabi government supports. However, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that American companies will run the data centers and provide cloud services managed by the US across the region.
The US also mentioned that chip company Qualcomm is working on an AI engineering center. In addition, Amazon Web Services, the cloud branch of Amazon, will collaborate with local partners to focus on cybersecurity and help more people use cloud services.
The US has been using protectionist policies for years to limit China’s access to advanced computer chips. This includes making sure the chips don’t reach China through other countries.
Regulations are easing under Trump, whose AI czar, David Sacks, said in Riyadh on Tuesday that the Biden administration’s export controls were “never intended to capture friends, allies, strategic partners.”
Giving the UAE more access to the most advanced chips made by companies like Nvidia is a significant policy change.
“This shift enables [the UAE] to deepen its technology partnership with the US while preserving trade ties with China,” said Mohammed Soliman, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
“It doesn’t mean abandoning China, but it does mean recalibrating tech strategy to align with US standards and protocols where it matters most: compute cloud and chip supply chains,” he said.
AI was a key topic when Bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Washington in December, during the last days of Biden’s presidency.
G42 and MGX, the UAE-backed companies leading the country’s AI investment efforts, have also put money into US companies like OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI. Last year, Microsoft also agreed to invest $1.5 billion in G42.
The two companies stated that security guarantees supported the deal. Under pressure from the US, G42 had started removing Chinese equipment it was using and selling off its Chinese investments.
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