Microsoft (MS) will make a $15.2 billion (about 21.8 trillion won) investment in artificial intelligence (AI) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
MS President Brad Smith said on the 3rd (local time) that, as part of its AI plan, the company will add more than $7.9 billion through 2029 on top of the $7.3 billion invested in the UAE from 2023 to this year.
Since 2023, MS has made a $1.5 billion equity investment in G42, a state-owned AI corporations backed by the UAE sovereign wealth fund, and spent $4.6 billion on AI and cloud infrastructure in the UAE. It also spent $1.2 billion on local operating expenses and cost of revenue.
On top of that, the company plans to put in another $7.9 billion, including $5.5 billion for future expansion of AI and cloud infrastructure.
Smith emphasized that it is "money spent in the UAE, not money raised in the UAE."
Smith explained that in September, MS obtained approval from the Commerce Department, for the first time under the Donald Trump administration, to export graphics processing units (GPUs) needed for AI computing to the UAE.
As a result, MS can export GPUs equivalent to 60,400 units of Nvidia's A100 chips to the UAE, and GPUs based on the newer GB300 are also included for export.
Earlier, during the Joe Biden administration, MS also received Commerce Department approval and provided the UAE with GPUs equivalent to 21,500 A100 GPUs.
Earlier, OpenAI, along with SoftBank, Oracle, Nvidia, and Cisco, also formed a partnership in May with G42 to build a large-scale data center with 5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity in Abu Dhabi.
The UAE's AI usage rate is among the highest in the world. According to a report recently released by MS, the share of the population using AI in the UAE was 59.4%, ranking No. 1 globally. This is higher than Singapore, which ranked second at 58.6%. Excluding the UAE and Singapore, no country has a usage rate above 50%.
However, some in the U.S. Republican Party have voiced concerns about investments in the UAE and G42. Because G42 has maintained close ties with Chinese telecommunications corporations Huawei, there could be security issues.
In fact, when the U.S. government approved AI chip exports to the UAE last year, it set a condition that sanctioned parties such as China must be prevented from gaining access. G42 is said to have removed Huawei equipment from its own systems and withdrawn investments in Chinese corporations.