Plans for the 5GW UAE-US AI Campus, unveiled during US President Donald Trump's visit to Abu Dhabi, include an emphasis on security, given Washington's focus on limiting China's access to advanced AI technology.
In addition to the size and ambition of the artificial intelligence infrastructure plan, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick underlined the project's “strong security guarantees to prevent diversion of US technology".
Sriram Krishnan, the White House's senior policy adviser for AI, described the link up as "historic".
“These Middle East AI partnerships are historic and this 'AI diplomacy' will help lock in the American tech stack in the region …” Mr Krishnan posted on X. “This happens on top of rigorous security guarantees to stop diversion or unauthorised access of our technology.”
In a response to Mr Krishnan's post, Talal Al Kaissi, executive vice president and chief government affairs and partnerships officer at Core42, a unit of Abu Dhabi's AI company G42, also stressed security.
“We at G42 appreciate the delicate balance US policymakers have in trying to spearhead global AI partnerships while prioritising rigorous security to protect advanced technologies,” said Mr Al Kaissi
Emphasising security may seem routine, but the wider context of chip exports and geopolitical tensions between the US and China give these comments more weight.
“I’m genuinely perplexed how any self-proclaimed 'China Hawk' can claim that President Trump’s AI deals with UAE and Saudi Arabia aren’t hugely beneficial for the United States,” White House cryptocurrency and AI adviser David Sacks wrote on X.
“If the concern is about diversion of advanced semiconductors to China, that’s an important policy objective but one that is easily addressed with a security agreement and a 'trust but verify' approach.”
Mr Sacks said the physical size of AI hardware means it is “not like diamonds smuggled in a briefcase".
Those comments were in sharp contrast to those of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who expressed scepticism just hours before the AI campus announcement. “This could undermine building the AI future in America,” he wrote.
Over at the US commerce department, however, Mr Lutnick insisted such concerns were without merit. "Any advanced semiconductor data center in the UAE or abroad will only be authorized if they operate with US government-approved Data Centre operators and cloud service providers," he wrote on X.
"These companies include for example Google, Microsoft, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI, and AWS."
On Monday, however, days after the UAE-US AI Campus was announced, Mr Schumer sent a letter to both US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr Lutnick, reiterating his concerns.
"Saudi Arabia and the UAE are important regional partners," he wrote in his letter, which was signed by seven other Democratic senators. "Nonetheless, we should ensure any deal include important guardrails on human rights and potential downstream exportation of such technology to our adversaries in Russia and China."
A balancing act
Projects the size of the 5GW UAE-US AI Campus do not happen in a vacuum. Last week's announcement followed months of discussions that saw the UAE's desire to remain an AI leader brush up against external geopolitical factors beyond its control.
Those external factors involve the US and China, which are both seeking to exert AI dominance amid a turbulent relationship.
Under former president Joe Biden, the US tried to block China's access to powerful semiconductors and graphics processing units, turning to chip export policy to achieve that goal.
Caught in the middle, however, were countries including the UAE, Switzerland, India, Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would have been in a second tier for chip exports, imposing a ceiling on AI aspirations. The UAE-US AI Campus plan seeks to lift that constraint.
A source told The National that, with the UAE-US AI campus and, more broadly, the US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership framework that makes it possible, “approved UAE entities will have access to the chips they need”.
Lennart Heim, an associate information scientist at the Rand Corporation think tank, echoed that analysis.
“To put the new 5GW AI campus in Abu Dhabi into perspective, it would support up to 2.5 million Nvidia B200s. That's bigger than all other major AI infrastructure announcements we've seen so far,” Mr Heim wrote.
Both sides have agreed on several security processes to ensure the technology at the heart of the AI campus remains in place.
Nvidia seems pleased
Nvidia, the US chip maker that has has converted the AI wave into unprecedented profits and corporate relevance, has been one of the most vocal firms to oppose Mr Biden's AI chip export policies.
“In its last days in office, the Biden administration seeks to undermine America’s leadership with a 200-plus-page regulatory morass, drafted in secret and without proper legislative review,” read a January statement from Ned Finkle, Nvidia's vice president of government affairs.
In February, the topic came up as Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang tried to persuade Mr Trump not to implement the rules. Those efforts, along with other pushes from companies such as Microsoft, appear to have had some impact, at least in the context of the UAE-US AI campus.
Mr Huang was in Abu Dhabi as models of the AI campus were unveiled. Several days later, while speaking to Bloomberg in Taiwan, Mr Huang said there was “little evidence” of Nvidia's hardware being smuggled to China.
What's next?
It remains unclear if or when the Trump administration will adjust chip export rules. Debate continues over how much impact the policies would have given the quickening pace of AI developments.
Chinese tech companies such as DeepSeek and Huawei appear to have been largely unaffected by the policies. And some observers say the export rules prompted China to be even more innovative with its approach.
Robert Mogielnicki, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute think tank in Washington, said that amid all the debates, the UAE has carefully and successfully managed a balancing act.
“They've reserved their highest tier tech partnerships for US partners,” Mr Mogielnicki said, noting a particular UAE affinity for Microsoft and Nvidia.
He added, however, the AI campus announcement does not mean the end for China, especially on a private-sector relationship level between UAE and China-based firms.
“There's still significant Chinese interest in the in the region's technology sector, and many of those Chinese technology companies have very compelling offerings too,” said Mr Mogielnicki.
