Microsoft this week announced a $1.5 billion investment in an Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence company called G42. Reports stated that the agreement was concluded at the request of the Biden administration Financial Times.
The United States is said to have facilitated several meetings between companies and investors with AI knowledge, including the aforementioned Google, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Microsoft. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was a strong driving force in this process.
Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who runs Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund and is chairman of the G42, was also closely involved. The country has previously expressed ambitions to be a leader in developing artificial intelligence, as a measure to diversify away from oil in the future. The country's vast oil revenues will fund these ambitions.
OpenAI founder Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made several visits to the Gulf country to discuss the opportunities and challenges that cooperation in this area will provide.
Go to China
The talks come as part of Washington's efforts to gain the upper hand over China in developing artificial intelligence and other sensitive technology. This must be achieved, among other things, by building closer relationships between the US technology industry and the UAE.
Before the agreement between Microsoft and G42 was concluded, US authorities conducted a comprehensive investigation into G42's links to Chinese technology, and whether the cooperation would give Chinese companies access to US data. This took several months, and G42 had to commit to excluding all forms of Chinese technology, including devices from Huawei.
G42 CEO Peng Xiao confirmed this winter that the company was dispensing with Chinese technology to focus on American solutions. This means, among other things, that the company complies with US laws and regulations.
“We are in a situation where we have to choose sides. We cannot cooperate with both China and the United States,” Xiao told the Financial Times last year. He himself was born in China, studied in the United States, and is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates.
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