The United States reached a deal with the United Arab Emirates to collaborate on an artificial intelligence technology cluster in Abu Dhabi. Photo by UAE Presidential Court/EPA-EFE
May 16 (UPI) — The United States and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to form an Artificial Intelligence alliance.
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced in a statement that the United States will launch a one-gigawatt AI data center, which in turn will be a part of a five-gigawatt “UAE-U.S. artificial intelligence technology cluster” in the UAE capital city of Abu Dhabi.
The cluster will manage the region’s computation needs that will operate under American-level security standards and be open to the distribution of new AI infrastructure that can serve on an international level.
A group will be formed between the countries within 30 days of its announcement and will “work together to make more efficient the process of inward investments into the United States by UAE Investment Funds,” which also involves UAE investment in American digital infrastructure.
“We are proud to announce the US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick posted to X Thursday. “Together we will build the largest AI data center outside the United States, powered by American companies and high tech manufacturing.”
The deal was made public as President Donald Trump continues a trip through the Gulf region and stopped to visit a new AI campus in Abu Dhabi, where American-produced AI chips will computationally power the facility and become the largest project of its type anywhere outside the United States.
The Biden administration had set an “AI Diffusion Rule” in January, under which the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security added exceptions to the facilitation in regard to the export, reexport of transfer of “advanced computing” to ensure the tech ended up with “users in destinations that do not raise national security or foreign policy concerns.”
The Trump administration rescinded that rule Tuesday, a deregulation that now allows the federal government to make deals with other countries to decide how many American chips they would like to purchase.
“The Trump Administration will pursue a bold, inclusive strategy to American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world, while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffery Kessler in a Tuesday press release.