Bloomberg is reporting that after nearly five months of delays, the United States has approved several billion dollars’ worth of Nvidia chip exports to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Nvidia chief Jensen Huang had reportedly expressed his frustrations recently, but the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security finally issued the Nvidia export licenses under the terms of a bilateral AI agreement that was reached in May when US President Donald Trump visited the UAE.
Quoting people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Bloomberg said the approval came after the UAE made concrete plans for a reciprocal amount of investment in America. The official declined to specify the exact value of the approved chip shipments and Emirati investment.
On March 21 this year, it was announced that UAE investment fund ADQ, along with US partner Energy Capital Partners, would invest US$25 billion in US-focused energy infrastructure and data centers.
In the report, Bloomberg said: “Underpinning the AI deal is an Emirati promise to invest a whopping US$1.4 trillion on American soil over the next ten years, a pledge the Gulf nation has not broken down into specific projects. The US, meanwhile, planned to approve up to 500,000 advanced American AI chips annually, with a fifth slated for Abu Dhabi AI juggernaut G42.”
While the UAE and Nvidia did not comment directly on the deal, a spokesperson for the most valuable company in the world told Bloomberg that “the Commerce Department is fully committed to the transformational US-UAE AI partnership deal.”
In May this year, a new 5GW UAE-US AI Campus was unveiled in Abu Dhabi following a meeting between His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, and President Trump. Largest outside of the US, the new AI campus is expected to be home to US hyperscalers and large enterprises that can leverage the capacity for regional compute.
It was reported at the time that the campus, which would span a massive 10 square miles, will be built by G42 and operated in partnership with several US companies.
The delays were reportedly caused because of concerns of some policymakers about building such a large site outside the US.
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