Trump hails Qatari pledge to invest $10 bn in US airbase

US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump said on Thursday Qatar will invest $10 billion in coming years in the Al Udeid Air Base southwest of its capital Doha, the largest US military facility in the Middle East.

- REUTERS

In a speech to US troops at the base during his tour of the Gulf, Trump also said defence purchases signed by Qatar on Wednesday are worth $42 billion.

Trump then flew to the United Arab Emirates, whose leaders want US help to make their Gulf nation a global leader in artificial intelligence.

He was met at Abu Dhabi International Airport by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and headed to visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

The US has a preliminary agreement with the UAE to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips a year, starting this year, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The deal would boost the UAE's construction of data centres vital to developing artificial intelligence models. But the agreement has provoked national security concerns among sectors of the US government, and the terms could change, sources said.