OpenAI has signed four agreements in Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi Media Office said on Nov. 2 (local time) that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Executive Council Chairman Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and that agreements were signed to use OpenAI models in the energy, investment and government sectors.
In a statement, Altman said, “Abu Dhabi and the UAE are setting bold global standards across both the public and private sectors to ensure that the benefits of AI reach everyone. We are proud to support the UAE’s goals under our shared commitment to safety, accessibility and responsible innovation.”
OpenAI is currently finalizing a new fundraising round led by UAE investors.
◆ Oil company and sovereign wealth fund become customers
The biggest name is Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). ADNOC has agreed to adopt OpenAI’s latest technology in partnership with G42 subsidiary Inception42. It is the first energy company to do so.
ADNOC said it will run GPT models on servers located in the UAE to bring together decisions on field operations, investment and trading. Sovereign wealth fund Mubadala has agreed to use AI to select investment opportunities and assess risks, working with Inception42 and OpenAI. Neither agreement’s financial terms were disclosed.
The Abu Dhabi government has launched a project with OpenAI to convert government regulations and policies into a format that AI can read. When someone applies for a permit or certificate, AI will first check the application against the relevant rules, after which a government official will make the decision.
The AI’s conclusions will be traceable to the specific legal provisions on which they are based. The Department of Government Support is leading the project, which is already being piloted in food-import reviews by the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority. Processing will take place on GPUs at data centers in the UAE.
Abu Dhabi has set its sights on becoming the world’s first “AI-native government.” In a separate five-year agreement, Inception42 and OpenAI will make OpenAI models available to the UAE’s government, businesses and schools, and jointly develop AI products for large organizations.
◆ Investment follows the contracts
According to CNBC, OpenAI is pursuing a new funding round of up to $20 billion led by UAE investors.
In October, reports said the company was seeking to raise up to $30 billion at a valuation of $1.25 trillion. UAE funds such as MGX, as well as Coatue and BlackRock, were cited as potential investors. In March, OpenAI raised $122 billion at a valuation of $852 billion.
Middle Eastern capital has flowed into both companies. Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX co-led OpenAI’s $122 billion funding round in March and Anthropic’s $30 billion round in February. As their spending on computing grew, both companies sought more capital—and turned to the Middle East. Their infrastructure plans overlap as well.
G42 is building the 1-gigawatt Stargate UAE data center in Abu Dhabi, announced in May last year. By specifying that computing for the ADNOC and government agreements will run on GPUs located in the UAE, the deals also effectively secure work in advance for that data center.
◆ South Korea is still waiting
The Middle East has emerged as an AI hub in recent years, with major data center deals signed one after another by U.S. tech giants. However, ongoing regional conflicts have also put its appeal to the test. With these agreements, OpenAI has brought together customers, investors and data centers in the UAE.
In October last year, OpenAI, Samsung and SK signed a letter of intent to cooperate on Stargate in South Korea, but the data center’s site and scale have yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, the UAE has built data centers, deployed models at state-owned companies and government agencies, and committed investment. The deadline for closing OpenAI’s fundraising round, its final size and the amounts to be invested by UAE investors have not been disclosed.