A group of global tech giants gathered in Abu Dhabi to pose for a photo as an AI supergroup, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Oracle’s (ORCL-0.97%) Larry Ellison, Nvidia’s (NVDA-1.54%) Jensen Huang, and Chuck Robbins of Cisco (CSCO-0.12%), along with their new UAE partners.
They were gathered to launch Stargate UAE, an AI infrastructure 1-gigawatt compute cluster located in the Persian Gulf country. This comes a week after President Trump visited the region and signed an agreement to build the largest AI campus outside the U.S., with a total 5-gigawatt capacity, of which Stargate will be a part.
The Trump deal would also give the UAE access to advanced Nvidia chips, as many as 500,000, according to Reuters. In the closing days of the Biden administration, it contemplated denying the country access to American chips due to UAE’s close ties with China. In particular, key Stargate partner G42 was considered a serious security threat by the CIA in 2023. Trump’s team had no such concerns.
G42 CEO Peng Xiao said in the press release that “this initiative is about building a bridge —rooted in trust and ambition — that helps bring the benefits of AI to economies, societies, and people around the world.”
Stargate UAE is an extension of a project announced in January by OpenAI with Microsoft (MSFT-0.92%) and others, as a massive investment in AI infrastructure. OpenAI’s Sam Altman said it would also “provide strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.”
One of the many funders in the American Stargate is the UAE fund MGX. Microsoft was not listed as a partner in the UAE campus.
Stargate U.S. plans to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure in America. No price tag has yet been attached to the UAE campus.
The facility, spanning 10-square miles in Abu Dhabi, will “be powered by nuclear, solar, and natural gas to minimize carbon emissions,” said the press release.
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