UAE to join 'Stargate' project

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE headline

- CADE METZ TRIPP MICKLE

OpenAI unveiled plans 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 software giant Oracle, chipmaker Nvidia, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, networking provider Cisco and G42, an Emirati artificial intelligence firm. The first of several data centres planned for the complex is expected to be up and running next year.

G42 is also expected to contribute money to the construction of OpenAl data centres 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 US data centres, 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, OpenAl’s CEO, has spent more than a year evangelising for the global construction of huge data centres to help his company build powerful AI systems. 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 Al campus in Abu Dhabi powered by 5 gigawatts of electrical power — enough to power all the homes in Minnesota.