The deal, which is still being negotiated and could change, would let the UAE import 500,000 of the most advanced chips on the market each year from now to 2027, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential conversations. One-fifth would be set aside for the Abu Dhabi AI firm G42, while the remainder would go to US companies building data centers in the Gulf nation, according to the people.
One of those companies could be OpenAI, which may announce new data center capacity in the UAE as soon as this week, people familiar with the matter said. The people emphasized that discussions around that deal remain fluid.
All told, if the deal moves forward in its current form, it would mark a sea change in US policy toward AI development in the Middle East and specifically the United Arab Emirates, where US officials have long been wary of government officials’ and private companies’ ties to Beijing. The US has restricted advanced chip sales to China since 2022, an effort to prevent Beijing from making gains in AI that could benefit its military. One year later, the US expanded those rules to countries including the UAE over concerns that China may be able to access leading-edge chips via intermediaries.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Nvidia, G42, the UAE embassy in the US and OpenAI declined to comment. The New York Times previously reported some details of the discussions.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday began a tour of the Middle East with a stop in Saudi Arabia, after which he will travel to Qatar and then the United Arab Emirates. The US is also considering an agreement to grant Saudi Arabia more access to advanced semiconductors, a move that would boost the kingdom’s AI ambitions.
Trump could unveil the UAE chip accord during his visit there, the people said, while emphasizing that the details are still under active deliberation. Central to the conversations with the UAE is White House AI Adviser David Sacks, who spent several days in the country ahead of Trump’s trip.
Sacks’ argument — that the US semiconductor lead over China is narrowing — is one that several company executives have made as they urged the Trump administration to rescind some Biden-era chip export controls. But that point has not assuaged the concerns of many China hawks in Washington, who remain worried that China could either acquire physical chips from the UAE or tap the capabilities of those chips via the cloud. It’s unclear whether the Trump administration plans to restrict UAE data centers powered by American chips from being used to train Chinese AI models.
“Deals like this require scrutiny and verifiable guardrails,” Representative John Moolenaar, the top Republican on the panel, said in a post on X. “We raised concerns about G42 last year for this very reason—and we need safeguards in place before more agreements move forward.”
