U.S. and UAE to Build AI Campus with 5GW Data Centers in Abu Dhabi

TMTPOST -- U.S. companies are set to further expand their artificial intelligence (AI) footprint in the Middle East through a new partnership between the Trump administration and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Credit：White House

The United States and the UAE planned to work together on an AI campus including 5GW of capacity of AI data centers in Abu Dhabi to support regional computation demand, while meeting robust US security standards and other efforts to responsibly deploy AI infrastructure, both in the UAE and globally, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced on Thursday. It said His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, and U.S. President Donald Trump that day attended the unveiling of Phase 1 of the new AI campus in Abu Dhabi.

The new AI campus, which will span 10 square miles, will be the largest such facility outside of the U.S., according to the department. The Emirate firm G42 will build the campus and will operate it with several American companies. The department didn’t specify G42’s U.S. partners, but said the campus will be home to U.S. hyperscalers and large enterprises that can leverage the capacity for regional compute with the ability to serve the developing countries.

“Today’s agreement launches an historic middle eastern partnership on AI between our two nations. It promotes major investment in advanced semiconductors and data centers across the U.S. and the UAE. In the UAE, American companies will operate the data centers and offer American-managed cloud services throughout the region,” said U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The White House said in a statement that the U.S. and UAE signed an AI agreement on Thursday during Trump’s visit to the UAE that supports the $1.4 trillion investment commitment secured in March. This includes the UAE committing to invest in, build, or finance U.S. data centers that are at least as large and as powerful as those in the Emirate. The U.S.-UAE AI agreement strengthens bilateral investment partnerships, ensuring U.S. security interests and dominance in AI while extending the American tech stack to an important strategic partner, according to the statement.