As President Donald Trump’s tour of the Middle East gathers momentum, OpenAI is positioning itself at the heart of a geopolitical realignment that could reshape where A.I. is developed—and who controls its future. The company is in talks to build a data center in the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg reported, a pivotal move for both the creator of ChatGPT and a Gulf nation eager to establish itself as a tech hub.
This isn’t OpenAI’s first engagement with the Emirates. In 2023, it partnered with G42, an A.I. firm based in Abu Dhabi. That alliance deepened in early 2024, when Microsoft—OpenAI’s largest investor—channeled $1.5 billion into G42.
MGX, an Emirati investment fund chaired by a royal family member, also participated in OpenAI’s $6.6 billion funding round and is expected to join a $100 billion A.I. infrastructure initiative alongside SoftBank and Oracle, as part of the Trump administration’s four-year, $500 billion “Stargate” project, announced in January.
Trump’s arrival in the Middle East was timed with a cohort of powerful tech executives: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, IBM’s Arvind Krishna and—of course—Elon Musk. The delegation highlights both the rising role of tech leaders in U.S. foreign diplomacy and Silicon Valley’s growing reliance on the White House to navigate geopolitical barriers, particularly those involving trade embargos.
For example, access to Nvidia’s cutting-edge A.I. chips remains constrained by U.S. export controls implemented in 2023. However, the Trump administration is reportedly working on a workaround that would permit the UAE to import over a million high-end chips, most of which would be allocated to U.S. firms like OpenAI operating in the region.
Other companies are capitalizing on the diplomatic push. Nvidia has announced a deal with Saudi Arabia’s Humain AI to build “A.I. factories” in the Kingdom, where it will supply hundreds of thousands of chips over the coming years. During the same trip, Elon Musk’s Starlink secured approval to operate in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis also pledged $600 billion in U.S.-bound investments through various deals.
While many agreements have already emerged from Trump’s stop in Saudi Arabia, more announcements are expected when he arrives in the UAE on Thursday. OpenAI is likely to unveil further details about its data center plans during that visit.
