With Donald Trump’s tour of the Middle East, Openai positioned itself at the heart of a geopolitical restructuring that could reshape the development of AI and control its future. Bloomberg reported that the company is negotiating to establish a data center in the United Arab Emirates, a key move by the creator of Chatgpt and a desire to establish itself as a technology hub.
This is not the first time Openai has interacted with Emirates. In 2023, it partnered with G42, an AI company based in Abu Dhabi. The alliance deepened in early 2024, when Microsoft, the largest investor in Openai, announced $1.5 billion in the G42.
MGX, an UAE investment fund hosted by a royal family, also participated in OpenAI's $6.6 billion funding round, expected to join the $100 billion AI infrastructure initiative and join Softbank and Oracle as part of the Trump administration's four-year $500 billion “Stargate” project.
Trump’s arrival to the Middle East is a series of powerful technical directors: Openai CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, IBM’s Arvind Krishna, and of course Elon Musk. The delegation highlighted the rising role of technology leaders in U.S. diplomacy and the increasing reliance on Silicon Valley on the White House to drive geopolitical barriers, especially those involving trade.
For example, access to NVIDIA's cutting-edge AI chips remains restricted by U.S. export controls implemented in 2023. However, the Trump administration is reportedly working on a solution that will enable the UAE to import more than one million high-end chips, most of which will be allocated to U.S. companies such as OpenAI in the region.
Other companies are leveraging diplomatic impetus. NVIDIA announced an agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Humain AI to build a “AI factory” in the kingdom, which will provide hundreds of thousands of chips in the coming years. On the same trip, Elon Musk's Starlink was approved for operations in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis also promised $600 billion in U.S. alliance investment through various transactions.
Although many agreements have emerged during Trump's stay in Saudi Arabia, he is expected to make more announcements when he arrives in the UAE on Thursday. Openai may release more details about its data center plans during this visit.
