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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly e-newsletter.

The United Arab Emirates is in search of a “marriage” with the US over artificial intelligence because the Gulf state hopes to make use of its petrochemical wealth to develop into a world superpower in growing the cutting-edge expertise.

The UAE’s AI minister Omar Sultan Al Olama instructed the Monetary Instances {that a} current deal with Microsoft to amass a $1.5bn stake in Abu Dhabi’s business AI champion G42 was solely the beginning of larger tech collaboration between the 2 international locations.

That deal, which adopted months of negotiations between US and UAE officers, led to G42’s promise that it will dump Chinese language techniques because the US seeks to keep up dominance over AI.

“Now you’re going to see the outcomes of that marriage, if I’ll use that phrase, between each G42 and Microsoft, but additionally the UAE and the USA,” stated Al Olama. “If you take a look at the frontier expertise, on the most leading edge, that must be in co-ordination with the US gamers and there must be reassurances which might be given to the US.”

Fuelled by sovereign wealth funds value about $2tn, the UAE’s AI ambitions have emerged into sharper focus this yr because it tries to decrease its financial dependence on fossil fuels partially by positioning itself as a world AI hub.

Abu Dhabi has created the funding car MGX, anticipated to be value billions of {dollars}, chaired by the UAE’s highly effective nationwide safety adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

MGX has been in talks with San Francisco-based OpenAI over its chip growth plans, the Monetary Instances has reported, and Sheikh Tahnoon has spearheaded discussions between the UAE and US on AI.

The UAE is constructing AI capabilities in key sectors from healthcare to defence and believes that AI can assist its greatest enterprises develop into extra environment friendly. Abu Dhabi’s nationwide oil firm stated the usage of AI-tools helped to generate $500mn in value financial savings final yr by way of rising manufacturing capability and making operations extra streamlined.

The UAE is up in opposition to stiff international competitors. The US and China are battling to take a technological lead over AI, whereas start-ups within the UK, France and throughout Asia are attracting multibillion-dollar funding from worldwide traders.

Nevertheless, the UAE’s benefit is having the ability to present unparalleled entry to capital. Expectations that Abu Dhabi will make investments closely in AI tasks abroad has additionally attracted trade leaders to the nation in current months, from OpenAI’s Sam Altman to Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.

The UAE has stockpiled chips wanted to energy giant language fashions, with Al Olama estimating the nation had amassed a backlog that will serve its wants for 2 years. Nevertheless, US officers are additionally in search of to sluggish the cargo of some AI chips to the Center East, together with the UAE, in accordance with Bloomberg.

Some observers fear in regards to the autocratic UAE gaining access to superior AI expertise.

Marietje Schaake, worldwide coverage fellow at Stanford College’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, stated US coverage round AI had to date been pragmatic, narrowly centered on combating China. 

“The singular give attention to China means different international locations can declare to be a part of a like-minded coalition, and the US administration gladly turns a blind eye to their human rights violations within the meantime,” stated the previous European parliament member.

This month, Abu Dhabi’s Superior Expertise Analysis Council launched its newest giant language mannequin, Falcon 2, which it stated has been assessed by outdoors evaluators as performing as effectively or higher than rival LLMs made by Meta and Google.

ATRC has additionally spun out a business AI firm, AI71, to construct fashions based mostly on UAE authorities information from well being authorities and the judicial system.

The federal government information provides the UAE a “very sturdy important benefit on this sport, the place there are only a few gamers which have loads of proprietary information”, stated Faisal Al Bannai, ATRC’s secretary-general.

Abu Dhabi additionally opened Mohamed bin Zayed College of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first AI devoted college, in 2019.

The institute has helped set up a pipeline for expertise within the UAE, a serious problem for the nation of solely 10mn, most of whom are expats. Although a fifth of the college’s graduate college students are from the UAE, 22.5 per cent are from China, stated the college’s provost Tim Baldwin.

Whereas Abu Dhabi focuses on constructing AI applied sciences, its neighbouring emirate Dubai needs to use them.

Dubai plans to extend its information centre capacities to host the cloud computing wanted for AI and desires to foster AI “clusters” of corporations round established industries comparable to finance.

“There’s a perception, throughout all the management ranges within the UAE, that AI is a expertise that we’re going to give attention to,” stated Al Olama. “The choices we take as we speak [ . . .] are going to form how the UAE is for future generations.”