Microsoft will invest $15.2 billion in the United Arab Emirates over the next four years, according to the company announced Monday at the first annual Global AI Summit in Abu Dhabi. The investment will include the first shipments of the most advanced Nvidia GPUs to the United Arab Emirates.
As part of the agreement, the United States has granted microsoft a license to export Nvidia chips to the United Arab Emirates, a move that positions the country as a testing ground for US export control diplomacy and a regional anchor of US influence in AI.
The deal allows Microsoft to expand its presence in the Middle East, a key region in the global fight for AI dominance. In May, President Donald Trump reached an agreement with the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, to build an artificial intelligence data center campus in Abu Dhabi. The project was delayed due to US export controls, which restricted the sale of powerful Nvidia chips needed to run advanced artificial intelligence systems.
Microsoft in September became the first company to receive a license from the US Department of Commerce to ship chips to the United Arab Emirates. The move comes as critics say the deal undermines the logic of restrictions on U.S. exports to China by introducing potential backchannels through a Chinese ally.
In a statement, Microsoft said it has carried out substantial work to meet the robust cybersecurity and national security conditions required by the licenses, which has allowed the company to accumulate the equivalent of 21,500 Nvidia A100 GPUs in the UAE, based on a combination of A100, H100 and H200 chips.
Microsoft said it is using the chips to provide access to artificial intelligence models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open source vendors and itself.
The $15.2 billion figure includes money Microsoft began spending in the United Arab Emirates starting in 2023 as part of a new artificial intelligence initiative in the country. Between 2023 and the end of 2025, Microsoft will have spent just over $7.3 billion in the UAE, including a $1.5 billion equity investment in G42, the UAE’s sovereign AI company, and more than $4.6 billion in data center capital.
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As part of the new agreement, Microsoft commits to spending an additional $7.9 billion in the UAE from early 2026 to the end of 2029, including $5.5 billion in capital expenditures for continued, planned expansion of artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure. Microsoft hinted at new steps it will share publicly in Abu Dhabi this week.
Microsoft’s work in the United Arab Emirates goes further build data centers. The company says it is combining massive AI infrastructure with deep investment in local talent, training and governance. The company pledges to train one million residents by 2027 and use Abu Dhabi as a regional hub for research and development of AI models.
The investment comes on the same day Microsoft signed a $9.7 billion deal with Australian IREN for AI cloud capability.
