- Microsoft’s $15.2 billion UAE spend is not unimportant
- The country’s citizens are among the top users of generative AI worldwide.
- The measure also aims to build international trust.
Microsoft has committed to investing $15.2 billion in the United Arab Emirates between 2023 and 2029 to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure and generate talent in the region.
The company’s investment goes a step further to help build trust in technology cooperation and partnerships between the United States and the United Arab Emirates, and Microsoft has already spent $7.3 billion on capital investments, capital expenditures and other ongoing expenses between 2023 and 2025.
Microsoft now plans to match that figure with another $7.9 billion invested between now and 2029, a period in which $5.5 billion will be dedicated to the expansion of artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure, as well as $2.4 billion in operating costs.
Microsoft plans to continue investing in the United Arab Emirates
As part of its ongoing investments in the UAE, Microsoft has obtained US export licenses for Nvidia GPUs while meeting strict security and compliance conditions.
The company noted that around 81,900 GPUs will now be deployed, which will be used for models in OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft’s own services.
Microsoft’s investment in the UAE doesn’t come out of the blue: the country ranks highest globally for AI usage per capita, according to Microsoft’s recent AI Diffusion Report.
59.4% of the UAE population uses GenAI, ahead of Singapore (58.6%), according to the report, with no other country surpassing the 50% mark.
Speaking about its upskilling efforts, Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company is on track to meet and exceed its goal of training one million people in the UAE by the end of 2027.
The last pillar of investment is to strengthen trust. “Given the role of export controls and other trade issues, the flow of advanced GPUs and AI models also requires trust between nations,” Smith said.
To address this, Microsoft is leading the development of the Intergovernmental Assurance Agreement (IGAA) alongside the governments of the United Arab Emirates and the US to ensure security, export control, and technology transfer requirements are met.
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