The News
UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed met with US President Donald Trump and tech luminaries in Washington this week seeking to deepen the two countries’ ties.
Discussions centered on regional security and how to “increase our partnership for the advancing of our economic and technological futures,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Abu Dhabi is eyeing US deals through ADNOC’s international investment arm XRG, which is building up capacity in liquefied natural gas and the specialty chemicals that help cool data centers. It’s also seeking steady access to the most advanced AI chips — looming export curbs could threaten the UAE’s ambitions to develop massive, home-grown AI models.
The UAE has already won over American tech and finance giants. Abu Dhabi inked a deal with Microsoft during the visit to implement AI services across the capital’s government, while Nvidia and Elon Musk’s xAI agreed to join the $30 billion BlackRock AI Infrastructure Partnership, backed by Abu Dhabi’s MGX and Microsoft.
Sheikh Tahnoon’s schedule included Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, as well as Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, and Palantir’s Alex Karp, Semafor scooped.