Sam Altman meets UAE President in Abu Dhabi to discuss AI cooperation

Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, met UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, according to the UAE state news agency.The talks between Sam and Mohammed centered on building stronger cooperation between OpenAI and organizations in the Emirates.Officials reported that both men focused on artificial intelligence research and practical applications inside the country. Mohammed said:“This cooperation aligns with the UAE’s ambition to establish an integrated AI ecosystem, supporting the country’s development plans and its drive to build a knowledge-based economy.”The UAE has been spending billions of dollars to become a global player in AI. It is developing one of the world’s largest AI data centers and has announced a new Arabic-language AI model. Officials are also working to use the country’s strong ties with the United States to secure access to AI technology.In May, the UAE and the U.S. signed a deal for the Gulf state to build one of the largest artificial intelligence campuses outside the United States.That deal was announced during President Donald Trump’s visit to Abu Dhabi earlier this year, underscoring the scale of the cooperation between Washington and Abu Dhabi on AI infrastructure.UAE expands AI projects and engages OpenAIThe meeting between Mohammed and Sam is tied directly to these ambitions. Emirati officials want to bring OpenAI into the country’s larger AI ecosystem to ensure that investments in data centers and research projects result in real-world applications. The UAE is betting that this will help speed up its economic shift away from oil by boosting technology capacity.The government’s message was clear: it wants not only research partnerships but also deployment of AI applications across industries inside the country.The meeting also took place against the backdrop of a massive funding announcement from Nvidia, the world’s most valuable listed tech company. Last week, Nvidia said it would invest $100 billion into OpenAI to support its large-scale data center build-out, as Cryptopolitan reported.The size of this investment has raised concerns among investors about the possibility of an AI bubble. Nvidia had already taken part in a $6.6 billion investment round in OpenAI in October 2024. It also holds about 7% of CoreWeave, a firm that provides data center capacity to OpenAI and also buys Nvidia products.That stake was worth about $3 billion at the end of June. These overlapping relationships make it hard to track where the money flows. Many of Nvidia’s financing agreements are too small individually to be classified as material in filings but may be significant when added up.Nvidia’s equity stakes also help companies like OpenAI and CoreWeave secure debt for data center projects at lower interest rates. Jay Goldberg, an analyst at Seaport Global Securities, said such deals are like “someone asking their parents to be a co-signer on their mortgage.”Lenders gain confidence from Nvidia’s backing and cut the cost of borrowing. Startups building data centers have often had to pay interest rates as high as 15%, compared to 6% to 9% for large corporations such as Microsoft.With Nvidia’s support, OpenAI and CoreWeave have been able to borrow at rates close to what Microsoft or Google pay. The Sam Altman meeting in Abu Dhabi and the financial moves by Nvidia show how the UAE’s AI plans, OpenAI’s expansion, and the chipmaker’s funding strategy are now tightly linked. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.