The White House has announced a new collaboration between the United States and the United Arab Emirates — the countries are jointly implementing a large-scale artificial intelligence project that will be the largest of its kind outside the United States, CNBC reports.
The data center in Abu Dhabi will be built by Emirati company G42 in partnership with several American firms, the Ministry of Commerce said. The complex will have a capacity of 5 gigawatts and cover an area of about 26 square kilometers.
The names of the American companies have not yet been made public. However, it is known that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, and Cisco President Jitu Patel were in the country during President Donald Trump's visit to the UAE.
"In the UAE, American companies will operate the data centers and offer American-managed cloud services throughout the region," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik said.
According to him, the agreement includes strict security measures to avoid technology leakage from the United States.
The project was part of Trump's broader trip to the Middle East, during which he met with heads of state and announced a number of new agreements.
The first phase of the initiative involves launching an AI data center with a capacity of 1 gigawatt.
UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who participated in the presentation of the project with Trump, emphasized that this cooperation strengthens the region's position as a leading center for innovative research and sustainable development.