As part of a new partnership, G42, an Emirati A.I. firm, will also help fund OpenAI’s new computer facilities in the United States.
OpenAI unveiled plans on Thursday to build a massive computing complex in the United Arab Emirates, following a deal between the Trump administration and the Persian Gulf nation.
The company’s new facility is part of a joint venture with the software giant Oracle, the chipmaker Nvidia, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and G42, an Emirati artificial intelligence firm. The first of several data centers planned for the complex is expected to be up and running next year.
G42 is also expected to contribute money to the construction of OpenAI data centers in the United States. For every dollar that the firm and its partners invest in the Emirates, they will invest an equivalent amount in the U.S. data centers, OpenAI said. While OpenAI did not say how much the new Emirati facility would cost, its size suggests G42 will invest tens of billions of dollars in each country.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, has spent more than a year evangelizing for the global construction of huge data centers to help his company build powerful A.I. systems. And the Emirati announcement is an indication that his wildly ambitious plan, called Stargate, may be starting to gain traction.
The complex arrangement overlaps with a separate agreement reached last week between the United States and the United Arab Emirates to build an A.I. campus in Abu Dhabi powered by five gigawatts of electrical power — enough to power all the homes in Minnesota. The campus would be the largest project of its kind outside the United States.
The Middle East data center plans have divided Washington. The Trump administration officials who drove the deal, including David Sacks, the White House’s A.I. czar, have championed it as a way persuade the Gulf States to use and promote American A.I. technology rather than turning to China. But others in the administration and across Capitol Hill have expressed concern that the deal poses a threat to national security and risks turning the Middle East into an A.I. rival of the United States.
