Trump Administration Reverses AI Chip Export Restrictions, Sparking Debate on National Security and Global AI Leadership

Offshoring AI to the Middle East Could Hand China a Win

How can the US remain at the head of the global AI pack? For former President Joe Biden, part of the answer was the "AI diffusion rule," enacted in the final days of his presidency. The rule capped sales of the most advanced artificial intelligence chips to most countries, while leaving room to negotiate exceptions. Not so fast, said President Donald Trump. This week, just before the diffusion rule took effect, his administration tore it up. And during his Middle East tour, Trump cut several large deals for companies like Nvidia and AMD to sell chips to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which have big ambitions to become AI hotspots but were capped by the diffusion rule. In short -- and as you would expect from Trump -- rules are out, dealmaking is in.

US Weighs Letting UAE Buy Over a Million Advanced Nvidia Chips

The Trump administration is weighing a deal that would allow the United Arab Emirates to import more than a million advanced Nvidia Corp. chips, people familiar with the matter said, a quantity that far exceeds limits under Biden-era AI chip regulations -- and one that's raised concerns that American hardware risks ending up in China's hands. The deal, which is still being negotiated and could change, would let the UAE import 500,000 of the most advanced chips on the market each year from now to 2027, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential conversations. One-fifth would be set aside for the Abu Dhabi AI firm G42, while the remainder would go to US companies building data centers in the Gulf nation, according to the people.

What's at Stake as the US Gives Saudis Access to State-of-the-Art AI Chips

President Donald Trump's administration has changed the direction of US AI policy toward two oil-rich states in the Middle East. It's paved the way for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to buy chips from Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. that are considered state-of-the-art when it comes to creating and running artificial intelligence software and services. Previously, the US had restrictions on delivering advanced technology to the region as part of broader controls on the spread of US AI-related tech. Those constraints have been motivated by national security concerns and, more broadly, the desire to keep the capabilities out of China's hands. The Commerce Department announced May 13 that the US was rescinding the so-called AI diffusion rule launched by Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, which created three broad tiers of access for countries seeking AI chips. The rule would have taken effect May 15. Trump's administration is drafting its own approach and could shift toward negotiating individual deals with countries, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump's Rush to Cut AI Deals in Saudi Arabia and UAE Opens Rift With China Hawks

President Donald Trump's flurry of artificial intelligence deals during his tour of the Middle East is opening a rift within his own administration as China hawks grow increasingly concerned the projects are putting US national security and economic interests at risk. The Trump team has worked out agreements for parties in Saudi Arabia to acquire tens of thousands of semiconductors from Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., while shipments to the United Arab Emirates could top a million accelerators -- mostly for projects involving or owned by US companies. Such chips are used to develop and train models that can mimic human intelligence, and they're the most coveted technology of the AI age.

US weighs letting UAE buy over a million advanced Nvidia chips, Bloomberg News reports

May 13 (Reuters) - The Trump administration is weighing a deal that would allow the UAE to import more than a million advanced Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab chips, a quantity that far exceeds limits under Biden-era AI chip regulations, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. The deal, which is still being negotiated and could change, would let the UAE import 500,000 of the most advanced chips on the market each year from now to 2027, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. While one-fifth would be set aside for the Abu Dhabi AI firm G42, the rest will go to U.S. companies building data centers in the Gulf nation, according to the report. The Department of Commerce and Nvidia did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

US close to letting UAE import millions of Nvidia's AI chips, sources say

NEW YORK/DUBAI, May 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the United Arab Emirates to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's (NVDA.O), opens new tab most advanced AI chips per year, starting in 2025, two sources familiar with the situation said, boosting the Emirates' construction of data centers vital to developing artificial intelligence models. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreement was at least through 2027, but that there was a chance it could be in place until 2030. The draft deal called for 20% of the chips, or 100,000 of them per year, to go to UAE's tech firm G42, while the rest would be split among U.S. companies with massive AI operations like Microsoft(MSFT.O), opens new tab and Oracle (ORCL.N), opens new tab that might also seek to build data centers in the UAE, the sources said. They said the agreement is still being negotiated and could change before being finalized. One source said the deal, elements of which were first reported by the New York Times, faced growing opposition in the U.S. government over the past day. The Biden administration issued restrictions on AI chip exports to control the flow of the sophisticated processors worldwide, in part to keep the prized semiconductors from being diverted to China, where they could bolster Beijing's military. U.S. President Donald Trump this week is on a tour of the Gulf region and on Tuesday announced $600 billion worth of commitments from Saudi Arabia, including deals to buy large quantities of chips from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab and Qualcomm (QCOM.O), opens new tab. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. The chips in the UAE deal that would go to G42 would represent a tripling or quadrupling, in terms of compute power, that would have been available to the UAE under rules put in place by the administration of former President Joe Biden. The Trump administration said last week it planned to rescind that regulation. At present, the vast majority of AI computing power is deployed in the United States and China. If all the proposed deals in Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the region would become a third power center in global AI competition. The U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, did not have a comment. The White House, G42 and the United Arab Emirates did not have an immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, the UAE's ruling family and U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake hold stakes in G42. The tech holding group's chairman, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is the UAE national security adviser and brother of the Emirates' president. The preliminary agreement also aims to promote data centers in the U.S. It currently says that for every facility G42 builds in the UAE, it must build a similar one in the U.S., the sources said. One of the sources said the definition of what is an advanced AI chip would be figured out in a separate working group that will be created later, along with security requirements. The proposed numbers of chips are for the most advanced graphics processing units, one of the sources said. As of now, that could refer to Nvidia Blackwell chips, which are more powerful than the previous generation of Hopper chips, or Nvidia's forthcoming Rubin chips, which are more powerful than both of their predecessors. Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York and Hadeel Al Sayegh in Dubai; Editing by Chris Sanders and Matthew Lewis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

Trump heads to UAE as it hopes to advance AI ambitions

DOHA, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump was due to end a brief trip to Qatar with a speech to U.S. troops on Thursday then fly to the United Arab Emirates, where leaders hope for U.S. help to make the wealthy Gulf nation a global leader in artificial intelligence. The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the UAE to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's (NVDA.O), opens new tab most advanced AI chips a year, starting this year, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The deal would boost the country's construction of data centers vital to developing artificial intelligence models. But the agreement has provoked national security concerns among sectors of the U.S. government, and the terms could change, sources said. A string of business agreements has been inked during Trump's four-day swing through the Gulf region, including a deal for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 Boeing widebody jets, a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S. and $142 billion in U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. The trip has also brought a flurry of diplomacy. Trump made a surprise announcement on Tuesday that the U.S. will remove longstanding sanctions on Syria and subsequently met with Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa. On Thursday, Trump will address U.S. troops at the Al Udeid Air Base, which is in the desert southwest of Doha and hosts the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East. He then flies to Abu Dhabi to meet with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and other leaders. AI is likely to be a focus for the final leg of Trump's trip. Former President Joe Biden's administration had imposed strict oversight of exports of U.S. AI chips to the Middle East and other regions. Among the Biden administration's fears were that the prized semiconductors would be diverted to China and buttress Beijing's military strength. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. If all the proposed chip deals in Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the region would become a third power center in global AI competition after the United States and China. Trump had dangled the possibility of making a side trip to Turkey to join Russia-Ukraine talks before returning to Washington, but a U.S. official said on Wednesday that the president would not make that stop. By Gram Slattery and Andrew Mills in Doha and Federico Maccioni in Abu Dhabi; Additional reporting by Yousef Saba, Karen Freifeld and Hadeel Al Sayegh; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Osterman Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence Gram Slattery Thomson Reuters Gram Slattery is a White House correspondent in Washington, focusing on national security, intelligence and foreign affairs. He was previously a national political correspondent, covering the 2024 presidential campaign. From 2015 to 2022, he held postings in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile, and he has reported extensively throughout Latin America.

Trump whiplash jolts AI

If there was any doubt that geopolitics has come to play an outsized role in the fortunes of the US artificial intelligence industry, look no further than the recent upturn in the fortunes of leading AI chipmaker Nvidia. The company's stock market value has just surged by more than half a trillion dollars in the space of a week on the back of US policy that seemed geared to the needs of the country's AI companies. At first glance, that might look like a strong "buy" signal for US AI, but the whiplash effect on tech stocks from the erratic opening months of the Trump White House makes such optimism premature. The chipmaker's hot streak on Wall Street started with the news that the new administration was about to suspend measures designed to slow the spread of advanced AI around the world. The so-called AI diffusion rule, announced late in the Biden presidency and due to take effect this week, would have restricted the free sale of the most sensitive AI technologies to 18 close US allies. Most other countries, consigned to "tier two" status, would have had access to only a limited supply of AI chips. Importantly, the blueprints for leading-edge models would also have been barred from export to these countries, keeping the training and operation of the most advanced AI inside a narrow circle of countries. Lifting those restrictions doesn't just point to potential new markets for US tech, but could give US AI companies a freer hand in deciding the optimal location for their operations, perhaps even leading to an offshoring of advanced AI. That news was followed at the start of this week with a significant reduction in the severe import tariffs imposed last month on China. A day later, and timed to coincide with a Middle East visit by Trump, Nvidia's stock got another big lift as the company announced a large deal to sell its most advanced data centre chips to Saudi Arabia. The lurch of US policy in directions that seem to favour its leading AI companies looks like welcome relief for Silicon Valley. However, far from being settled, major parts of the new administration's tech policy are now officially up in the air. That leaves them vulnerable to horse-trading among different interest groups in the White House, as well as the president's own whim. Areas of uncertainty include what a replacement AI diffusion rule will look like. The new administration may have shown an openness to countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which is also now in line for a large batch of Nvidia chips -- but it is still considering what extra restrictions are needed to prevent the re-exporting of sensitive US technology to China. At the same time, it appears to be working on a comprehensive new tariff regime for semiconductors. And export restrictions on direct sales of AI chips to China continue to be a moving target. A month ago, Nvidia's market cap slumped by $370bn in just three trading sessions after it disclosed the latest controls on its China sales. That brought a nadir for its stock -- before, that is, the more favourable moves in Washington that have since helped to send the price back up nearly 40 per cent. At least the signal from the Middle East this week has been that the US is very much open to unrestricted AI business with its favoured allies, and its tech companies have shown they are more than ready to surge through any open door presented to them. Countries such as Saudi Arabia may have a long way to go to develop the wider tech skills and capabilities they aspire to, but at least they have plentiful supplies of energy and cash. The outlook for opening other markets is harder to predict. As the US tries to reach a host of new trade deals, there is a risk that access to its advanced tech will become just one more pawn haggled over in negotiations. US tech investors, meanwhile, may take extra heart from Washington's warning to international customers not to buy the latest Ascend data centre chips from Huawei. In practice, there is not much of a sign that is a market yet for these chips outside China. To judge by the pace of recent advances, this probably won't always be the case. At some point, open Chinese AI models tuned to run on a more advanced generation of Chinese AI chips could come to represent a viable alternative on global markets. The question, at that point, will be whether Washington has already done enough to embed its homegrown AI in all the markets that matter.

Trump Administration Considers Large Chip Sale to Emirati A.I. Firm G42

Ana Swanson reported from Washington, and Tripp Mickle from San Francisco. The Trump administration is considering a deal that could send hundreds of thousands of U.S.-designed artificial intelligence chips to G42, an Emirati A.I. firm that the U.S. government has scrutinized in the past for its ties to China, three people familiar with the discussions said. The negotiations, which are ongoing, highlight a major shift in U.S. tech policy ahead of President Trump's visit to the Gulf States this week. The talks have also created tension inside the Trump administration between tech- and business-minded leaders who want to close a deal before Mr. Trump's trip and national security officials who worry that the technology could be misused by the Emiratis. The Trump administration has embraced cutting direct deals for A.I. chips with officials from the Middle East, as it looks to strengthen U.S. ties in the region, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations are ongoing. The approach marks a break from the Biden administration, which had rejected similar A.I. chip sales over fears that they could give autocratic governments with strong ties to China an edge over the United States in developing the most cutting-edge A.I. models in coming years. In the talks with G42 and officials from the United Arab Emirates, David Sacks, the White House A.I. czar, has been working on an agreement that would give the Emirati firm access to chips with limited oversight. Some of the chips would go to a partnership that G42 has with the U.S. firm OpenAI, while others would be sent directly to G42, one of the people said, adding that a deal hasn't yet been finalized. The Trump administration is also expected to announce a deal this week with officials in Saudi Arabia, two people with knowledge of the agreement said. The deal would give the Saudi government and its new A.I. company, Humain, access to tens of thousands of semiconductors and technology support from Nvidia and its A.I. chip rival, Advanced Micro Devices. The United States began requiring a license for the purchase of A.I. chips during the Biden administration because of their value in helping governments develop military and surveillance technologies. The Trump administration's changes have the potential to reshape an arms race between nations, and countries eager to develop A.I. Major chip sales would be a boon for G42, potentially catapulting the Emirati firm to be one of the most powerful A.I. companies outside of the United States. It would be a powerful catalyst for the businesses of Nvidia, the world's leading A.I. chip maker. And it would fulfill OpenAI's multiyear effort to bring more computing power to the Middle East. Alasdair Phillips-Robins, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former official in the Commerce Department, said that a sale that included hundreds of thousands of advanced chips would risk handing "control of the future of A.I. to countries that have political systems that we shouldn't fundamentally trust." "There's a reason why these countries are so keen to get these chips, and it's not purely the financial returns," he said. "A.I. is going to be the backbone of militaries." The White House and G42 didn't respond to requests for comment. OpenAI declined to comment. Mr. Sacks has been in the Middle East for several days working on this and other deals. On Sunday, he posted a photo of himself on social media with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the national security adviser of the U.A.E., who also who chairs G42, saying that they had discussed their nations' A.I. plans and opportunities. "The U.S. must make itself the partner-of-choice for our friends and allies -- otherwise others will fill that gap," Mr. Sacks wrote on X, the social media platform. Sheikh Tahnoon said in a social media post that the discussions were part of strengthening economic ties between the countries. He added that "collaboration in advanced technologies serves as a cornerstone for building a smart, sustainable digital future that meets the aspirations of future generations." G42 is at the forefront of an Emirati effort to build an artificial intelligence industry and to lessen its dependence on oil income. The firm is controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon. It includes a $10 billion technology investment fund, an Arabic language A.I. model, a tech talent platform, a health care company and a genome-sequencing program. The firm has been clamoring for access to U.S. chips for several years, but negotiations with the Biden administration were slowed by concerns over its ties to China. In previous years, American spy agencies issued warnings about G42's work with Chinese companies, including telecom firm Huawei, and warned that G42 could be a conduit for siphoning advanced American technology to China. G42 has denied any connections to the Chinese government or military. In 2023, a congressional committee wrote a letter urging the Commerce Department to look into whether G42 should be put under trade restrictions because it had partnerships with Chinese firms and employees who came from government-connected companies in China. Before agreeing to sell chips to G42 in 2024, the Biden administration spent months negotiating security protections and a partnership with Microsoft. Under that agreement, Microsoft managed the chips to train and develop A.I. models, and G42 had permission to sell Microsoft services that use those chips. But after cutting that deal, G42 pressed U.S. officials for more chips and wanted to be able to operate them directly. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, also lobbied the U.S. government to approve more chip sales to the region. Mr. Altman had been working with Emirati officials to expand global computing power because there had been a shortage of it in the United States. He wanted to increase the supply of chips and data centers because he believed it would allow OpenAI to build more powerful A.I. systems. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement regarding news content related to A.I. systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.) MGX, an Emirati investment firm, is an investor in OpenAI. Last year, it joined a group of investors that contributed $6.6 billion to the start-up. A former Biden official said that G42 had requested roughly 200,000 A.I. chips for their partnership with Microsoft, as well as at least 500,000 chips by 2026 that would be solely owned and operated by G42. Senior Biden administration officials, even those who were open to cooperation with the Gulf States, saw those levels of sales as a nonstarter, the person said. As Mr. Trump travels around the Middle East this week, he is expected to tout deals made with both governments and companies. The administration is also expected to showcase deals and negotiations across the region by American tech companies, including AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google and OpenAI, according to six people familiar with the plans. The Trump administration has also announced that it plans to repeal a Biden administration rule that capped the number of A.I. chips that could be sent to certain countries, in favor of direct deal-making with governments. The Middle East is most likely to be the first beneficiary of this change. Officials from the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia have been negotiating with the Trump administration over the past two months to strike agreements that would provide them steady access to A.I. chips, deals which may be announced this week.

Sam Altman defends Trump's AI chip deals with UAE and Saudi Arabia, calls critics "naïve"

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. What just happened? Donald Trump's multibillion-dollar AI partnerships between US companies and Gulf nations have been criticized by those who fear it could open a backdoor for China to access restricted chips. But OpenAI CEO Sam Altman doesn't think so, and has labeled those with such concerns as "naïve." During his tour of the area last week, Trump announced a series of agreements with Gulf states, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, related to exporting AI chips and developing AI infrastructure. The US has allowed the UAE to import up to 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips annually, starting this year. The country also signed an agreement to build the largest artificial intelligence campus outside the US. In return, the UAE has pledged a $1.4 trillion investment in the United States over the next decade, encompassing sectors like energy, AI, and manufacturing. In Saudi Arabia, the nation's sovereign wealth fund-backed AI startup, Humain, has secured a deal to receive 18,000 Blackwell AI chips for a 500-megawatt data center. Leaders from AMD, Amazon and other companies announced the agreement. In return, the kingdom has committed to investing $600 billion in US companies, focusing on sectors like AI, defense, and infrastructure. The deals contrast with the previous US administration's treatment of Persian Gulf countries when it came to AI hardware exports. In 2023, Biden's government introduced restrictions on the sale of high-end AI chips from Nvidia and AMD to some countries in the Middle East, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, measures aimed at preventing sensitive technologies from reaching countries with close ties to China - the UAE's and Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner. The Biden administration also introduced the AI Diffusion Rule in January 2025, placing the UAE and Saudi Arabia in a category that imposed stricter export limitations on AI chips. The Trump administration recently rescinded the rule before it was due to take effect in May 2025. The new deals have drawn criticism from those who believe they could allow China access to the advanced AI chips that are prohibited from being exported to the Asian nation. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said, "This deal could very well be dangerous, because we have no clarity on how the Saudis and Emiratis will prevent the CCP from getting their hands on these chips." Former PayPal chief operating officer David Sacks, who acts as the White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar, said he was "genuinely perplexed" by criticism of the deals. Replying to the post on X, Altman wrote, "this was an extremely smart thing for you all to do and i'm sorry naive people are giving you grief." It's little surprise to see Altman voicing his support. OpenAI is collaborating with Emirati AI firm G42 and investment entity MGX to develop one of the world's largest AI data centers in Abu Dhabi. The company is also playing a major role in the AI revolution taking place in the Gulf region.

U.S. hopes to strike deals on minerals, chips during Trump's Mideast trip

The export of vast quantities of AI chips is under negotiation, along with the approval of a new Saudi mining company that would send critical minerals to the U.S. The Trump administration aims to authorize the sale of hundreds of thousands of artificial intelligence chips to two government-connected firms in the Middle East, in an attempt to create a bulwark against China that helps the region become an AI powerhouse in its own right. The agreements, which could be finalized during President Donald Trump's trip to the region, would enable G42, the national AI champion of the United Arab Emirates, and the newly announced Saudi AI company Humain, to access U.S.-made AI chips, said two people familiar with the negotiations, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Skip to end of carousel Trump presidency Follow live updates on the Trump administration. We're tracking Trump's progress on campaign promises and legal challenges to his executive orders and actions. End of carousel Some of the chips would flow through a new partnership between the UAE company and OpenAI, said a third person, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. Others could go directly to G42. The deals were first reported by the New York Times. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The Trump administration has also approved a memorandum of understanding worth $9 billion between a U.S. company and Saudi partners to mine and process critical minerals used in advanced manufacturing, energy and defense, said Shahal Khan, founder and CEO of Burkhan World Investments, the U.S. firm that is one of the parties in the deal. According to documents obtained by The Washington Post, under the terms of the agreement, a Saudi company, Grand Mines Mining LLC, will prospect for lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, such as Africa, which can be exported to the United States. Permitting the export of high volumes of powerful semiconductor chips -- critical components of AI data centers as well as advanced manufacturing and AI-enabled weaponry -- represents a break from U.S. foreign policy. The Biden administration limited the sales of such chips to both countries, out of concern over their strong connections to China and authoritarian governments. The U.S. previously allowed such chips to be exported at a slower place and had put in place a plan to audit data centers in stages and other restrictions. The sheer petroleum-generated wealth of the region and ample access to electrical power there has in recent years spawned mutual interest for collaboration between governments and Silicon Valley AI companies. The U.S. government has approved some of these deals, sometimes with provisions. One signed last year between Microsoft and G42, with the cooperation of the U.S. and UAE governments, mandated that G42 remove all its equipment made by China's biggest competitor in the sector, Huawei, among other restrictions. The Trump administration, according to one of the people familiar with the matter, believes that moving chip sales along more quickly will benefit U.S. interests, both by tying the region closer to the U.S. and by helping to advance American business. The new pace of chip sales will turbocharge the AI capabilities of these countries, giving them a huge leg up in the global AI arms race. That could one day enable them to compete with the U.S., said Sam Winter-Levy, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who writes about technology and geopolitics. "We essentially spent the last half-century trying to reduce the leverage of these states over the U.S. because of their control of the oil supply. Why would we recreate that dependency?" he said. "You are offshoring a core strategic technology -- computing power -- while creating new sources of dependence on authoritarian regimes with close ties to the Chinese and the Russians." Key tech leaders are in the region this week, including Trump's AI czar, David Sacks, Cerebras Systems CEO Andrew Feldman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and billionaire Trump donor and adviser Elon Musk, according to two people familiar with the matter. Since taking office, the administration has brokered major investments in U.S. data center infrastructure from Saudi and UAE companies. The high cost of building and maintaining data centers has led many Silicon Valley companies to seek financing in the Middle East in recent years, and building up capacity in the region is often a condition of that investment. Winter-Levy said he supports exporting AI technologies but said the Trump administration was not being strategic in doing so. "This is an administration that prides itself on using U.S. leverage to the max and driving a hard bargain, but this deal seems to be shaping up to be a giveaway of a core strategic technology in exchange for pretty short-term and superficial concession," he said. Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.

Trump's Gulf gamble: Helping UAE and Saudi become AI powers

Why it matters: The Biden administration saw the Gulf as a backdoor for China to gain access to the computing power needed to advance AI. President Trump and the tech CEOs who joined him in the Middle East see a chance for multibillion-dollar deals. Driving the news: In deal after deal announced over the week, Trump opened the door for the Gulf to obtain the world's most advanced AI chips. What they're saying: Trump's AI czar, David Sacks, called the deals a "game-changer in the global AI race" that will "help to cement American technology as the global standard -- before our competitors can catch up." The big picture: The UAE and Saudi Arabia have leaders desperate to make their kingdoms high-tech powers, and deep pockets and abundant energy needed to develop AI. Now, with Trump's help, they'll also have the chips. The other side: A group of Democratic lawmakers argued on Friday that Trump announced the deals "to export very large volumes of advanced AI chips to the UAE and Saudi Arabia without credible security assurances to prevent U.S. adversaries from accessing those chips." The flipside: The White House insists it can safeguard U.S. tech while pursuing these multibillion-dollar deals. Between the lines: Some policymakers and firms like Nvidia and Microsoft have argued overly arduous restrictions risk ceding the field to China, undercutting U.S. AI preeminence rather than bolstering it.

Trump's AI deals in Gulf stir China fears back home

The big picture: The president loves big deals with big numbers. Tech interests close to Trump want to see U.S. AI firms win global business. But China hawks in both parties distrust the Gulf states, which have close trade ties with China. Driving the news: The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party on Thursday introduced new legislation "to stop advanced U.S. AI chips from falling into the hands of adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)." Earlier this week, as Trump and tech titans announced deal after deal, the Bureau of Industry and Security at the Commerce Department issued new guidance saying the department has to approve the deals. Catch up quick: Trump's trip to the Gulf has included a flood of AI-related deals. The intrigue: The Trump administration is reportedly considering a deal that would allow more than 1 million advanced AI chips to be exported to the UAE. Yes, but: The deal announcements don't come with many details. It's unclear if there will be restrictions on who can access the chips on site and what they can be used for. What they're saying: "President Trump and his administration remain committed to making the United States a global leader in AI, while also ensuring our most advanced technology does not fall into the hands of our adversaries," National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt told Axios in an email. Flashback: An "AI diffusion" rule issued in the final days of the Biden administration placed restrictions on the export of chips to most countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Between the lines: Both administrations, Biden and Trump, have faced continuing debates over whether to prioritize U.S. business dominance or national security. State of play: The U.S. and China lead the world in AI infrastructure and deploying AI models, but "the Gulf states have massive ambitions to be the third leg of the stool," says Jimmy Goodrich, a senior adviser to RAND for technology analysis. The near-term concern for some in Washington is that China could access advanced U.S.-made AI chips through Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other third-party countries. In the longer term, the worry in D.C. is that U.S. companies might increasingly build the data centers that power AI development in the Gulf, where government subsidies could significantly cut the cost, rather than in the U.S.

Trump's Middle East AI Bet Sparks Security Concerns

This week, President Trump traveled to the Middle East on a business and diplomacy mission, during which he greenlit the sale of hundreds of thousands of American-made AI chips to firms in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. These deals signal a major shift in the U.S.'s approach to cutting-edge AI technology. Previously, U.S. leaders had focused on limiting access to ultra-powerful chips, especially to countries that might pose national security threats. Now, Trump is using them as leverage for his larger trade ambitions. While Trump was at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh -- held in parallel with his visit -- the White House announced that Saudi Arabia was committing $600 billion in investments in the United States, "building economic ties that will endure for generations to come," Onstage at the conference, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced his company was entering a massive partnership with Humain, a new company owned by the Saudi kingdom's Public Investment Fund, and sending them hundreds of thousands of chips. Rival chipmaker AMD announced its own $10 billion Saudi Arabian project. Another deal in the works could send hundreds of thousands of chips to the Emirati firm G42. While Trump allies heralded the deal as mutually beneficial to all parties, some national security experts have concerns about the longterm impacts of spreading these chips around the world. "AI chips should not be bargaining chips for broader trade deals," says Janet Egan, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). "They underpin US AI dominance, and we have to be really careful to not make short term decisions that might be beneficial for trade in the near term, but cede AI leadership in the longer term."

US Close to Letting UAE Import Millions of Nvidia's AI Chips, Sources Say

NEW YORK/DUBAI (Reuters) -The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the United Arab Emirates to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips per year, starting in 2025, two sources familiar with the situation said, boosting the Emirates' construction of data centers vital to developing artificial intelligence models. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreement was at least through 2027, but that there was a chance it could be in place until 2030. The draft deal called for 20% of the chips, or 100,000 of them per year, to go to UAE's tech firm G42, while the rest would be split among U.S. companies with massive AI operations like Microsoft and Oracle that might also seek to build data centers in the UAE, the sources said. They said the agreement is still being negotiated and could change before being finalized. One source said the deal, elements of which were first reported by the New York Times, faced growing opposition in the U.S. government over the past day. The Biden administration issued restrictions on AI chip exports to control the flow of the sophisticated processors worldwide, in part to keep the prized semiconductors from being diverted to China, where they could bolster Beijing's military. U.S. President Donald Trump this week is on a tour of the Gulf region and on Tuesday announced $600 billion worth of commitments from Saudi Arabia, including deals to buy large quantities of chips from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. The chips in the UAE deal that would go to G42 would represent a tripling or quadrupling, in terms of compute power, that would have been available to the UAE under rules put in place by the administration of former President Joe Biden. The Trump administration said last week it planned to rescind that regulation. At present, the vast majority of AI computing power is deployed in the United States and China. If all the proposed deals in Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the region would become a third power center in global AI competition. The U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, did not have a comment. The White House, G42 and the United Arab Emirates did not have an immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, the UAE's ruling family and U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake hold stakes in G42. The tech holding group's chairman, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is the UAE national security adviser and brother of the Emirates' president. The preliminary agreement also aims to promote data centers in the U.S. It currently says that for every facility G42 builds in the UAE, it must build a similar one in the U.S., the sources said. One of the sources said the definition of what is an advanced AI chip would be figured out in a separate working group that will be created later, along with security requirements. The proposed numbers of chips are for the most advanced graphics processing units, one of the sources said. As of now, that could refer to Nvidia Blackwell chips, which are more powerful than the previous generation of Hopper chips, or Nvidia's forthcoming Rubin chips, which are more powerful than both of their predecessors. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York and Hadeel Al Sayegh in Dubai; Editing by Chris Sanders and Matthew Lewis)

Trump Heads to UAE as It Hopes to Advance AI Ambitions

By Gram Slattery, Andrew Mills and Federico Maccioni DOHA (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump was due to end a brief trip to Qatar with a speech to U.S. troops on Thursday then fly to the United Arab Emirates, where leaders hope for U.S. help to make the wealthy Gulf nation a global leader in artificial intelligence. The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the UAE to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips a year, starting this year, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The deal would boost the country's construction of data centers vital to developing artificial intelligence models. But the agreement has provoked national security concerns among sectors of the U.S. government, and the terms could change, sources said. A string of business agreements has been inked during Trump's four-day swing through the Gulf region, including a deal for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 Boeing widebody jets, a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S. and $142 billion in U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. The trip has also brought a flurry of diplomacy. Trump made a surprise announcement on Tuesday that the U.S. will remove longstanding sanctions on Syria and subsequently met with Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa. On Thursday, Trump will address U.S. troops at the Al Udeid Air Base, which is in the desert southwest of Doha and hosts the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East. He then flies to Abu Dhabi to meet with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and other leaders. AI is likely to be a focus for the final leg of Trump's trip. Former President Joe Biden's administration had imposed strict oversight of exports of U.S. AI chips to the Middle East and other regions. Among the Biden administration's fears were that the prized semiconductors would be diverted to China and buttress Beijing's military strength. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. If all the proposed chip deals in Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the region would become a third power center in global AI competition after the United States and China. Trump had dangled the possibility of making a side trip to Turkey to join Russia-Ukraine talks before returning to Washington, but a U.S. official said on Wednesday that the president would not make that stop. (By Gram Slattery and Andrew Mills in Doha and Federico Maccioni in Abu Dhabi; Additional reporting by Yousef Saba, Karen Freifeld and Hadeel Al Sayegh; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Osterman)

Sam Altman calls critics of Trump's UAE AI deals 'naive'

Sam Altman defended AI deals between the US and Gulf countries, dismissing critics as naive. These deals, involving companies like Nvidia, AMD, and OpenAI, aim to boost AI development in the region. However, US lawmakers worry about potential access for China to advanced AI chips through these partnerships, highlighting concerns over technology transfer and security vulnerabilities.OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman called detractors of artificial intelligence (AI) deals US President Donald Trump cracked with Gulf countries during his recent visit "naive". Responding to David Sacks, Trump's top AI advisor and former PayPal executive, on X, Altman said the deals were "an extremely smart thing for you all to do and I'm sorry naive people are giving you grief." Sacks stated in his post that he was perplexed by how anyone opposing China could claim that President Trump's AI deals with the UAE and Saudi Arabia "aren't hugely beneficial for the United States". US lawmakers are concerned that supplying high-tech AI chips to Gulf countries can open access to them for China. Notably, the Trump administration recently scrapped a Biden-era rule restricting export of advanced AI semiconductors to a dozen countries. Sacks said concerns over US chips landing in China could be easily addressed with a security agreement and a "trust but verify" approach, which can be followed with physical verifications. During Trump's visit to Gulf countries earlier this week, several deals regarding AI development in the region were signed. Chipmakers Nvidia and AMD have joined hands with Saudi Arabia's Humain to bring billions in chips and hardware to the kingdom. Also Read: All about Humain, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's multi-billion dollar AI company Amazon Web Services will build an "AI Zone" in Saudi Arabia for $5 billion, while the UAE has announced plans for a new AI campus. Altman's OpenAI has committed to help the UAE develop one of the largest data centres in the world, with Nvidia and Cisco also backing the project. On the flipside, US lawmakers have voiced their concerns over these deals being used by China to access US-made AI chips. "This deal could very well be dangerous because we have no clarity on how the Saudis and Emiratis will prevent the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government, the Chinese manufacturing establishment from getting their hands on these chips," said Democratic senator Chuck Schumer earlier this week. "Reports of new U.S. chip deals with Gulf nations -- without a new chip rule in place -- present a vulnerability for the CCP to exploit. The CCP is actively working to indirectly access our most advanced technology. Without a formal AI diffusion rule, deals like this risk creating backdoor vulnerabilities for export control circumvention," said House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

US weighs letting UAE buy over a million advanced Nvidia chips

The Trump administration is negotiating a deal allowing the UAE to import over a million advanced Nvidia chips, bypassing Biden-era export limits. While aimed at boosting US tech ties and AI capacity in the Gulf, critics warn of national security risks and potential Chinese access through UAE-linked firms like G42.The Trump administration is weighing a deal that would allow the United Arab Emirates to import more than a million advanced Nvidia chips, people familiar with the matter said, a quantity that far exceeds limits under Biden-era AI chip regulations -- and one that's raised concerns that American hardware risks ending up in China's hands. The deal, which is still being negotiated and could change, would let the UAE import 500,000 of the most advanced chips on the market each year from now to 2027, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential conversations. One-fifth would be set aside for the Abu Dhabi AI firm G42, while the remainder would go to US companies building data centers in the Gulf nation, according to the people. One of those companies could be OpenAI, which may announce new data center capacity in the UAE as soon as this week, people familiar with the matter said. Over the lifetime of the deal, G42 could purchase computing capabilities equivalent to between 1 million and 1.5 million H100 chips, Nvidia's current best offering, the people said. That total is around four times more than G42 would have been allowed to buy under a Biden-era chip export control framework, known as AI diffusion that Trump plans to scrap, according to the people. It's on par with the number of chips needed to power a planned Meta Platforms Inc. data center in Louisiana that's so large it would cover a significant portion of Manhattan. All told, if the deal moves forward in its current form, it would mark a sea change in US policy toward AI development in the Middle East and specifically the United Arab Emirates, where US officials have long been wary of government officials' and private companies' ties to Beijing. It's unclear what national security conditions Trump officials have applied to the chip sales, the people said. Under President Joe Biden's administration, G42 agreed to divest from China's Huawei Technologies Co. to pave the way for a $1.5 billion Microsoft Corp. partnership that includes data centers in the Gulf nation. The White House didn't immmediately respond to a request for comment. Nvidia, G42, the UAE embassy in the US and OpenAI declined to comment. The New York Times previously reported some details of the discussions. President Donald Trump on Tuesday began a tour of the Middle East with a stop in Saudi Arabia, after which he will travel to Qatar and then the United Arab Emirates. The US is also considering an agreement to grant Saudi Arabia more access to advanced semiconductors a move that would boost the kingdom's AI ambitions. Trump could unveil the UAE chip accord during his visit there, the people said, while emphasizing that the details are still under active deliberation. Central to the conversations with the UAE is White House AI Adviser David Sacks, who spent several days there ahead of Trump's trip. As part of that visit, Sacks met with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan -- the UAE's national security adviser and brother of the country's president, who traveled to Washington earlier this year in part to press Trump officials for easier access to Nvidia chips. During Sheikh Tahnoon's March trip, the UAE pledged to spend $1.4 trillion on US tech, energy and infrastructure -- something that aided its pitch to buy more American semiconductors, Bloomberg has reported. "US companies still have the best technology but we are no longer the only game in town; it is well understood that China is catching up fast," Sacks wrote in a post on X about his meeting with Sheikh Tahnoon. "The country that builds its partner ecosystem the fastest is the one that will win this high-stakes competition. Effective AI diplomacy is vital now more than ever." Sacks' argument -- that the US semiconductor lead over China is narrowing -- is one that several company executives have made as they urged the Trump administration to rescind some Biden-era chip export controls. Prospects of a deal to expand the UAE's access to the most advanced AI semiconductors stirred objections among China hawks in Washington, who expressed concern that such an agreement would risk creating a path for Chinese entities to obtain sensitive technology. "Deals like this require scrutiny and verifiable guardrails," Representative John Moolenaar, the top Republican on the House China committee, said in a post on X. "We raised concerns about G42 last year for this very reason -- and we need safeguards in place before more agreements move forward."

US close to letting UAE import millions of Nvidia's AI chips, sources say

US president Donald Trump this week is on a tour of the Gulf region and on Tuesday announced $600 billion worth of commitments from Saudi Arabia, including deals to buy large quantities of chips from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration.The US has a preliminary agreement with the United Arab Emirates to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips per year, starting in 2025, two sources familiar with the situation said, boosting the Emirates' construction of data centers vital to developing artificial intelligence models. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreement was at least through 2027, but that there was a chance it could be in place until 2030. The draft deal called for 20% of the chips, or 100,000 of them per year, to go to UAE's tech firm G42, while the rest would be split among U.S. companies with massive AI operations like Microsoft and Oracle that might also seek to build data centers in the UAE, the sources said. They said the agreement is still being negotiated and could change before being finalized. One source said the deal, elements of which were first reported by the New York Times, faced growing opposition in the U.S. government over the past day. The Biden administration issued restrictions on AI chip exports to control the flow of the sophisticated processors worldwide, in part to keep the prized semiconductors from being diverted to China, where they could bolster Beijing's military. US president Donald Trump this week is on a tour of the Gulf region and on Tuesday announced $600 billion worth of commitments from Saudi Arabia, including deals to buy large quantities of chips from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. The chips in the UAE deal that would go to G42 would represent a tripling or quadrupling, in terms of compute power, that would have been available to the UAE under rules put in place by the administration of former President Joe Biden. The Trump administration said last week it planned to rescind that regulation. At present, the vast majority of AI computing power is deployed in the United States and China. If all the proposed deals in Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the region would become a third power center in global AI competition. The U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, did not have a comment. The White House, G42 and the United Arab Emirates did not have an immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, the UAE's ruling family and U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake hold stakes in G42. The tech holding group's chairman, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is the UAE national security adviser and brother of the Emirates' president. The preliminary agreement also aims to promote data centers in the U.S. It currently says that for every facility G42 builds in the UAE, it must build a similar one in the U.S., the sources said. One of the sources said the definition of what is an advanced AI chip would be figured out in a separate working group that will be created later, along with security requirements. The proposed numbers of chips are for the most advanced graphics processing units, one of the sources said. As of now, that could refer to Nvidia Blackwell chips, which are more powerful than the previous generation of Hopper chips, or Nvidia's forthcoming Rubin chips, which are more powerful than both of their predecessors. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York and Hadeel Al Sayegh in Dubai; Editing by Chris Sanders and Matthew Lewis)

Donald Trump heads to UAE as it hopes to advance AI ambitions

A string of business agreements has been inked during Trump's four-day swing through the Gulf region, including a deal for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 Boeing widebody jets, a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S. and $142 billion in U.S. arms sales to the kingdom.US president Donald Trump was due to end a brief trip to Qatar with a speech to U.S. troops on Thursday then fly to the United Arab Emirates, where leaders hope for U.S. help to make the wealthy Gulf nation a global leader in artificial intelligence. The US has a preliminary agreement with the UAE to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips a year, starting this year, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The deal would boost the country's construction of data centers vital to developing artificial intelligence models. But the agreement has provoked national security concerns among sectors of the U.S. government, and the terms could change, sources said. A string of business agreements has been inked during Trump's four-day swing through the Gulf region, including a deal for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 Boeing widebody jets, a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S. and $142 billion in U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. The trip has also brought a flurry of diplomacy. Trump made a surprise announcement on Tuesday that the U.S. will remove longstanding sanctions on Syria and subsequently met with Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa. On Thursday, Trump will address U.S. troops at the Al Udeid Air Base, which is in the desert southwest of Doha and hosts the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East. He then flies to Abu Dhabi to meet with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and other leaders. AI is likely to be a focus for the final leg of Trump's trip. Former President Joe Biden's administration had imposed strict oversight of exports of U.S. AI chips to the Middle East and other regions. Among the Biden administration's fears were that the prized semiconductors would be diverted to China and buttress Beijing's military strength. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. If all the proposed chip deals in Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the region would become a third power center in global AI competition after the United States and China. Trump had dangled the possibility of making a side trip to Turkey to join Russia-Ukraine talks before returning to Washington, but a U.S. official said on Wednesday that the president would not make that stop.

Trump's rush to cut AI deals in Saudi Arabia and UAE opens rift with China hawks

President Trump's AI chip deals with Gulf nations have sparked internal US tensions. China hawks fear security risks, despite safeguards barring Chinese access. Officials worry the agreements lack binding provisions and could aid China. Trump allies argue the deals protect US dominance by preventing Gulf nations turning to Chinese tech alternatives.President Donald Trump's flurry of artificial intelligence deals during his tour of the Middle East is opening a rift within his own administration as China hawks grow increasingly concerned the projects are putting US national security and economic interests at risk. The Trump team has worked out agreements for parties in Saudi Arabia to acquire tens of thousands of semiconductors from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, while shipments to the United Arab Emirates could top a million accelerators -- mostly for projects involving or owned by US companies. Such chips are used to develop and train models that can mimic human intelligence, and they're the most coveted technology of the AI age. Some senior administration officials are seeking to slow down the deals over concerns the US hasn't imposed sufficient guardrails to prevent American chips shipped to the Gulf from ultimately benefiting China, which has deep ties in the region, according to people familiar with the matter. While the UAE and Saudi accords include high-level language barring Chinese firms from accessing those chips, these officials argue too many details are still unresolved and the deals shouldn't be announced without legally binding provisions, the people said. China hawks also have grown alarmed over what they see as a willingness by White House AI adviser David Sacks, who's helping lead the talks, to entertain proposals from Gulf leaders that they view as clear national security risks. None of those proposals are included in the current bilateral accords in the Middle East. Beyond those security issues, some senior Trump officials question the wisdom of shipping such large quantities of chips to any location outside the US, given the administration's focus on maintaining American dominance in AI, said the people. As Vice President JD Vance put it at a Paris AI summit in February, "the Trump administration will ensure that the most powerful AI systems are built in the US with American designed and manufactured chips." If the announced and planned Middle East deals all come to fruition, the US would still hold the vast majority of the world's computing power -- but Gulf countries would for the first time have significant capabilities powered by best-in-class US hardware. A representative for the White House didn't provide official comment for this story, which is based on interviews with nearly a dozen people who spoke about internal administration discussions on condition of anonymity. Nvidia and a spokesperson for the UAE declined to comment, while Sacks, AMD and the Saudi Arabian government didn't respond to requests for comment. Advocates for the deals, including Sacks, argue that if the US doesn't encourage the world to use American chips, countries with AI ambitions will eventually turn to alternatives from Chinese companies -- which have made progress in closing the gap with Nvidia, the industry leader. "We need our friends, like the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other strategic partners and allies, to want to build on our tech," Sacks said Tuesday while on stage with Saudi Arabia's minister of communications and information technology. The possibility of that tech winding up in China is "not an issue with a friend like Saudi Arabia at all," he said. Not everyone in the Trump administration agrees. In escalating conversations over the past two days, several senior officials have discussed strategies for slowing the implementation of Gulf AI agreements -- and pumping the brakes on projects that have yet to be unveiled, the people said. One concern is a bilateral accord between the US and UAE that could include a massive project by OpenAI, the industry pioneer behind ChatGPT. Trump arrived in Abu Dhabi on Thursday after stops earlier this week in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Officials on the ground were still in active negotiations the morning of the president's visit, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that they expect the deals to move forward in the near term. If that happens, China hawks may press their concerns through the regulatory process in Washington. All AI chip shipments to the Gulf require US government approval through a licensing process involving several federal agencies. Administration officials are also in the middle of drafting global semiconductor export control rules after tossing out a framework introduced by President Joe Biden. That provides another opportunity to include specific China guardrails and other strategic priorities. Sacks, along with other officials who support the Gulf projects, has made the case that aggressive proliferation with security provisions would be a strategic win for the US -- and crucial for maintaining American leadership in AI. Part of Sacks' argument -- echoed by tech leaders including Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang -- is that the US lead over China in advanced chipmaking is shrinking. If Washington prevents countries with AI ambitions from building data centres with American technology, the logic goes, the US risks ceding those markets to its main geopolitical rival. Companies may choose to buy chips from the likes of Huawei Technologies Co., the Chinese tech giant at the centre of Washington's efforts to curtail Beijing's AI ambitions. On the other side of the debate, some officials in both the Trump and Biden administrations have argued that America's technological lead is quite large and enables Washington to write the rules of the road for as long as other countries still covet American chips. Policymakers can afford to be aggressive in negotiations, these officials argue, and shouldn't allow countries to access best-in-class American hardware without concessions and ironclad security promises. Trump officials in this second camp think they may be losing the internal fight over Middle East chip shipments -- especially after the UAE and Saudi Arabia offered a combined $2.4 trillion in US investments that helped pave the way for the recent AI deals. In particular, some senior administration officials have grown wary of negotiating positions adopted by Sacks, who has been one of the central players on the ground as government officials and tech executives hammer out the accords. In one meeting with Emirati officials ahead of Trump's trip, Sacks expressed openness to the UAE housing a production facility from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the leading maker of chips for the likes of Nvidia and AMD, people familiar with the matter said. The UAE has long coveted such a plant and asked the US government for its support as part of the broader chip accord. The hawkish Trump officials view a possible TSMC plant in the UAE as dangerous, the people said. Supporting the UAE's ambitions to manufacture AI chips domestically would create unnecessary national security risks given the country's ties to Beijing, the officials argue, especially if political alliances change in the future. The current accord doesn't include a TSMC plant, though separate conversations about such a project remain ongoing. TSMC declined to comment. Another lingering concern with the UAE is G42, the leading Abu Dhabi-based AI firm with historic ties to Huawei. Although it agreed to divest from Huawei and other Chinese providers to pave the way for a $1.5 billion partnership with Microsoft Corp. last year, some US officials remain wary of G42's commitment to American priorities. Now the Trump administration is considering an agreement that would allow G42 to buy the equivalent of more than a million Nvidia H100 accelerators, among the chipmaker's top offerings, Bloomberg has reported. Critics of that accord include the chairman of the House China Select Committee, which last year released a video detailing the bipartisan panel's G42 concerns. The voiceover in that video comes from Landon Heid, Trump's nominee for a top position at the agency that writes chip export rules and decides whether to approve individual semiconductor sales. Details of the security requirements in the broader UAE accord will be sorted out in a working group composed of American and Emirati officials, according to the people familiar with the matter. Topics already in the agreement include provisions to prevent diversion of chips to China and bar Chinese AI companies from remotely accessing UAE facilities. Sacks has been angling to steer efforts to write the fine print, the people said -- something that several of his US counterparts oppose. At one point in negotiations with Saudi Arabia, Saudi officials suggested they may install US chips in facilities that contain Huawei hardware, the people said, adding that the hardware in question was not Huawei's AI chips. The US delegation shot down that suggestion in the meeting, but after the fact, Sacks suggested that Trump's team should at least evaluate the idea. While some officials understood Sacks' reaction as a suggestion to consider national security concerns on a technical basis, others saw it as an immediate disregard for why US officials would hold those concerns in the first place. For officials who view Huawei as a red line in Washington's China policy, the exploration of that possibility was unacceptable. The idea is not part of the current accord, people familiar with the matter said. "The policy objective of preventing diversion to countries of concern is an absolutely important objective of the United States but it is not a difficult one to achieve," Sacks said during his Middle East appearance. "The truth of the matter is that all one would have to do is send someone to a data centre and count the server racks to make sure the chips are still there."

David Sacks Hails Trump's AI Strategy In Middle East As Power Move Over China -- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Backs Him: 'Sorry Naive People Are Giving You Grief' - Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

As criticism mounts over the Donald Trump administration's AI chip deals with Gulf states, David Sacks and Sam Altman are pushing back, calling the partnerships a strategic win over China. What Happened: Trump announced multibillion-dollar AI partnerships between U.S. companies and Gulf nations, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The deals involve major players like Nvidia Corporation NVDA, Advanced Micro Devices AMD, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and Qualcomm Inc. QCOM. Despite concerns from lawmakers about potential Chinese access to U.S. AI chips via Gulf allies, Sacks, a tech investor and White House AI advisor, defended the initiative in a post on X, formerly Twitter. "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," Sacks wrote. See Also: Elon Musk Says Will Come As A 'Surprise To Most' As China's Economy Surpasses US And EU Amid Rising Tariffs And Growing Recession Fears He cited semiconductor analyst Dylan Patel that the partnerships "will noticeably shift the balance of power" in the U.S.'s favor and asked critics: "Does China wish it had made these deals? Yes of course it does. But President Trump got there first and beat them to the punch." Altman shared Sacks' post on X and echoed his view, stating, "This was an extremely smart thing for you all to do and I'm sorry naive people are giving you grief." Why It's Important: The Joe Biden administration had previously implemented rules to restrict AI chip exports to countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, citing national security risks. Get StartedEarn 7.2% -- No Matter What the Fed Does Markets expect rate cuts -- but your earnings don't have to suffer. Lock in 7.2% until 2028 from ten individual bonds. Get Started However, those limits have now been rolled back, with new policies still in development, reported Axios. On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) cautioned that Trump's backing of efforts to export sensitive U.S. AI chip technology to allies in the Persian Gulf might ultimately give an advantage to China. Earlier, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang warned that limiting access to China's AI market could harm the company, U.S. jobs, and overall technological progress. His remarks followed a report revealing that Nvidia has notified key Chinese clients -- including Alibaba Group BABA, ByteDance and Tencent Holdings TCEHY -- that it is developing a modified version of its AI chip designed to meet U.S. export restrictions. Nvidia has earned a growth score of 95.02% from Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings. Click here to see how it stacks up against other top tech firms like AMD, Qualcomm, Alibaba and Tencent. Photo Courtesy: twenty1studio On Shutterstock.com Read Next: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Warns Recession Is Best-Case Outcome Of Trump Trade War Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. AMDAdvanced Micro Devices Inc$114.35-0.56%Stock Score Locked: Edge Members Only Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Unlock RankingsEdge RankingsMomentum21.70Growth82.79Quality71.20Value15.91Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewAMZNAmazon.com Inc$202.05-1.52%BABAAlibaba Group Holding Ltd$122.14-1.42%NVDANVIDIA Corp$132.10-2.02%QCOMQualcomm Inc$150.25-1.55%TCEHYTencent Holdings Ltd$65.46-1.06%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

President Trump's AI Deal With The Middle East Opens New Frontier for NVIDIA, Rivaling China; Expected To Ship Up to a Million Accelerators

It seems that the Middle East might be a newer region of interest for NVIDIA and others in the AI race, as President Trump signs off on massive deals with the nations. There's no doubt that NVIDIA is having a tough time maintaining its presence in the Chinese market, mainly since the US isn't happy with Team Green doing business in the region. China accounts for a massive portion of NVIDIA's AI/DC revenue, but it seems like under President Trump's latest round of visits to nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it is clear that the Middle East is interested to pour "billions of dollars" into AI, which could play out as something massive for AI-focused firms like NVIDIA, AMD, SMCI and many more. President Trump was accompanied by NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Huang, during his visit to Saudi Arabia. Jensen played a key role in unveiling the state-backed AI firm HUMAIN. The firm announced it will form billion-dollar deals with NVIDIA and AMD, acquiring their AI hardware resources to build large-scale gigawatt data centers. HUMAIN is said to acquire over 18,000 of NVIDIA's Blackwell Ultra GB300 AI clusters, and develop an AI infrastructure with 500 megawatt capacity over the next five years. Similarly, the firm also announced a deal worth $10 billion with AMD. Not only Saudi Arabia but also NVIDIA and others were massively interested in Trump's visit to the UAE. The leading AI firm, G42, announced that it will acquire over a million NVIDIA AI chips in the coming decade. Trump's push of investments from these nations is an indication that the US wants to rely on entities other than China for trade, and this could prove to be a pivotal moment for companies like NVIDIA, who are seeing the spotlight in the Middle East, and getting a decent chunk of the "oil money". While these announcements are surely welcoming, Bloomberg reports that US officials have cautioned Trump not to proceed too fast with the AI deals since it could compromise national security. By essentially selling millions of chips to these countries, they could potentially put the US behind when it comes to AI developments, and there's always a risk of China getting involved to access these chips despite strict US regulations.

OpenAI's Sam Altman rips 'naive' critics of Trump-backed AI chip...

OpenAI boss Sam Altman defended the Trump administration's move to support artificial intelligence deals with the UAE and Saudi Arabia while blasting critics of the arrangements as "naïve." Several AI deals were announced during Trump's recent Middle East tour - including a pact in which Nvidia and AMD agreed to sell thousands of chips to Saudi Arabia. Lawmakers from both parties questioned the deals over concerns that they lacked safeguards to prevent China from gaining access to the advanced US-made chips through third parties. "This was an extremely smart thing for you all to do and i'm sorry naive people are giving you grief," Altman wrote on X last Friday in response to a post by White House AI czar David Sacks. Sacks said he was "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." "As leading semiconductor analyst Dylan Patel observed, these deals 'will noticeably shift the balance of power' in America's favor. The only question you need to ask is: does China wish it had made these deals? Yes of course it does. But President Trump got there first and beat them to the punch," Sacks added. Altman's OpenAI announced plans last week to build a massive new data center in the UAE to support its AI efforts. Separately, Amazon Web Services unveiled an initiative for a $5 billion "AI Zone" in Saudi Arabia. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blasted the Trump-backed chip deals in a floor speech on Thursday. "This deal could very well be dangerous because we have no clarity on how the Saudis and Emiratis will prevent the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government, the Chinese manufacturing establishment from getting their hands on these chips," Schumer said. The Republican-led US House Select Committee on China also questioned the deals. "Reports of new U.S. chip deals with Gulf nations -- without a new chip rule in place -- present a vulnerability for the CCP to exploit," the committee said in a statement. "The CCP is actively working to indirectly access our most advanced technology. Without a formal AI diffusion rule, deals like this risk creating backdoor vulnerabilities for export control circumvention," the committee added.

US weighs letting UAE buy over a million advanced Nvidia chips, Bloomberg News reports

(Reuters) - The Trump administration is weighing a deal that would allow the UAE to import more than a million advanced Nvidia chips, a quantity that far exceeds limits under Biden-era AI chip regulations, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. The deal, which is still being negotiated and could change, would let the UAE import 500,000 of the most advanced chips on the market each year from now to 2027, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. While one-fifth would be set aside for the Abu Dhabi AI firm G42, the rest will go to U.S. companies building data centers in the Gulf nation, according to the report. ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which may announce new data-center capacity in the UAE as soon as this week, could be one of those companies, the report said. The report comes on the heels of U.S. President Donald Trump securing a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the United States. The Department of Commerce and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment, while Nvidia declined to comment. Abu Dhabi's artificial intelligence push has mostly been led by state-backed G42, which has drawn increased scrutiny from China hawks in Washington amid fears that the UAE is becoming a conduit for China to receive advanced American AI technology it is blocked from getting directly from the U.S. According to the Bloomberg report, G42 could purchase computing capabilities equivalent to between 1 million and 1.5 million H100 chips over the lifetime of the deal. That is around four times more than it would have been allowed to buy under a Biden-era chip export control framework, known as AI diffusion, it said. Trump's administration plans to rescind and modify this rule, which curbed the export of sophisticated AI chips, a spokeswoman for the Department of Commerce had said last week. (Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

US close to letting UAE import millions of Nvidia's AI chips, sources say

NEW YORK/DUBAI (Reuters) -The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the United Arab Emirates to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips per year, starting in 2025, two sources familiar with the situation said, boosting the Emirates' construction of data centers vital to developing artificial intelligence models. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agreement was at least through 2027, but that there was a chance it could be in place until 2030. The draft deal called for 20% of the chips, or 100,000 of them per year, to go to UAE's tech firm G42, while the rest would be split among U.S. companies with massive AI operations like Microsoft and Oracle that might also seek to build data centers in the UAE, the sources said. They said the agreement is still being negotiated and could change before being finalized. One source said the deal, elements of which were first reported by the New York Times, faced growing opposition in the U.S. government over the past day. The Biden administration issued restrictions on AI chip exports to control the flow of the sophisticated processors worldwide, in part to keep the prized semiconductors from being diverted to China, where they could bolster Beijing's military. U.S. President Donald Trump this week is on a tour of the Gulf region and on Tuesday announced $600 billion worth of commitments from Saudi Arabia, including deals to buy large quantities of chips from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. The chips in the UAE deal that would go to G42 would represent a tripling or quadrupling, in terms of compute power, that would have been available to the UAE under rules put in place by the administration of former President Joe Biden. The Trump administration said last week it planned to rescind that regulation. At present, the vast majority of AI computing power is deployed in the United States and China. If all the proposed deals in Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the region would become a third power center in global AI competition. The U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, did not have a comment. The White House, G42 and the United Arab Emirates did not have an immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, the UAE's ruling family and U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake hold stakes in G42. The tech holding group's chairman, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is the UAE national security adviser and brother of the Emirates' president. The preliminary agreement also aims to promote data centers in the U.S. It currently says that for every facility G42 builds in the UAE, it must build a similar one in the U.S., the sources said. One of the sources said the definition of what is an advanced AI chip would be figured out in a separate working group that will be created later, along with security requirements. The proposed numbers of chips are for the most advanced graphics processing units, one of the sources said. As of now, that could refer to Nvidia Blackwell chips, which are more powerful than the previous generation of Hopper chips, or Nvidia's forthcoming Rubin chips, which are more powerful than both of their predecessors. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York and Hadeel Al Sayegh in Dubai; Editing by Chris Sanders and Matthew Lewis)

Trump heads to UAE as it hopes to advance AI ambitions

DOHA (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump was due to end a brief trip to Qatar with a speech to U.S. troops on Thursday then fly to the United Arab Emirates, where leaders hope for U.S. help to make the wealthy Gulf nation a global leader in artificial intelligence. The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the UAE to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips a year, starting this year, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The deal would boost the country's construction of data centers vital to developing artificial intelligence models. But the agreement has provoked national security concerns among sectors of the U.S. government, and the terms could change, sources said. A string of business agreements has been inked during Trump's four-day swing through the Gulf region, including a deal for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 Boeing widebody jets, a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S. and $142 billion in U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. The trip has also brought a flurry of diplomacy. Trump made a surprise announcement on Tuesday that the U.S. will remove longstanding sanctions on Syria and subsequently met with Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa. On Thursday, Trump will address U.S. troops at the Al Udeid Air Base, which is in the desert southwest of Doha and hosts the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East. He then flies to Abu Dhabi to meet with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and other leaders. AI is likely to be a focus for the final leg of Trump's trip. Former President Joe Biden's administration had imposed strict oversight of exports of U.S. AI chips to the Middle East and other regions. Among the Biden administration's fears were that the prized semiconductors would be diverted to China and buttress Beijing's military strength. Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration. If all the proposed chip deals in Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the region would become a third power center in global AI competition after the United States and China. Trump had dangled the possibility of making a side trip to Turkey to join Russia-Ukraine talks before returning to Washington, but a U.S. official said on Wednesday that the president would not make that stop. (By Gram Slattery and Andrew Mills in Doha and Federico Maccioni in Abu Dhabi; Additional reporting by Yousef Saba, Karen Freifeld and Hadeel Al Sayegh; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Osterman) By Gram Slattery, Andrew Mills and Federico Maccioni