During his final stop on a four-day Gulf tour, President Donald Trump unveiled a groundbreaking agreement between the United States and the United Arab Emirates that will grant Abu Dhabi access to advanced AI semiconductors from American companies. The deal represents a significant policy shift from the Biden-era restrictions that limited chip exports to countries in the region over concerns about potential technology transfers to China.
According to sources familiar with the agreement, the UAE will be permitted to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips annually beginning in 2025. The preliminary deal, which could extend through 2027 or potentially until 2030, allocates 20% of these chips (approximately 100,000 per year) to UAE's tech firm G42, while the remaining chips will be distributed among US companies like Microsoft and Oracle that are establishing data center operations in the Emirates.
Central to this partnership is the development of a massive AI campus in Abu Dhabi spanning 10 square miles with 5 gigawatts of power capacity. Rand Corporation analyst Lennart Heim noted the unprecedented scale of this project, stating it's 'bigger than all other major AI infrastructure announcements we've seen so far' with enough power to support approximately 2.5 million of Nvidia's top-line B200 chips. The campus will be constructed by G42, an Abu Dhabi state-backed firm, but will be operated by American companies providing US-managed cloud services throughout the region.
The agreement includes safeguards to address previous US concerns about technology diversion. The UAE has committed to aligning its national security regulations with the United States and implementing strong protections to prevent the transfer of US-origin technology to unauthorized parties. Additionally, for every data center G42 builds in the UAE, it must construct an equivalent facility in the United States.
This deal is part of a broader set of agreements announced during Trump's Middle East tour, which included over $200 billion in commitments from the UAE. Among these was a $14.5 billion investment from Etihad Airways for 28 American-made Boeing aircraft and a pledge to increase Abu Dhabi's energy investments in the US to $440 billion over the next decade.
If all the proposed chip deals in Gulf states materialize, the region could emerge as a third power center in global AI competition alongside the United States and China, fundamentally reshaping the international technology landscape.