While U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to ease restrictions on the export of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to regional allies, U.S. companies, including Nvidia, are actively expanding their businesses in the Middle East.
According to Bloomberg News on the 13th, the U.S. is expected to announce an agreement soon that will allow Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to purchase more advanced AI chips from U.S. companies such as Nvidia and AMD.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are trying to develop the AI industry into future food, and advanced chips such as Nvidia are essential for this.
Citing multiple anonymous sources, Bloomberg said the Trump administration is discussing easing restrictions on Nvidia chip exports to the UAE, allowing the UAE to purchase 500,000 high-tech AI chips annually by 2027.
There is a possibility that about one fifth of the data will be used by UAE companies G42, while the rest will be used by U.S. companies to build UAE data centers. OpenAI is likely to announce the construction of a new data center in the UAE as early as this week.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration announced new export controls on January 13, at the end of his term, that would sell semiconductors needed for AI development to about 20 allies and partner countries, including South Korea, without restrictions, and set limits for most other countries. This was due to concerns that Nvidia chips could flow into China via third countries.
The Trump administration has decided to remove the regulation and is reportedly preparing a separate export control measure. News of U.S. companies expanding their business in the Middle East is also being released in line with President Trump’s trip to the Middle East.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at the Saudi-US Investment Forum held in Saudi Arabia that he had signed a contract to supply the latest AI chips to Humain, a Saudi sovereign wealth fund-owned company.
Nvidia will supply hundreds of thousands of advanced chips over the next five years, starting with 18,000 GB300 Blackwells.
According to Yahoo Finance, Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, cited Nvidia as the winner of the U.S.-China tariff war, and evaluated it as a dream scenario for Nvidia by combining it with the still demand for AI investment. AMD, Nvidia’s rival, has agreed to collaborate with Humane on creating AI data centers in the “Saudi to the United States” region.
Humane will work with AMD to spend 10 billion U.S. dollars on AI infrastructure over the next five years. Humane will be in charge of data center and power system development, while AMD will supply semiconductors and software.
Amazon and Humane have announced that they plan to spend more than 5 billion U.S. dollars on building an AI zone in Saudi Arabia. Humane plans to create an AI agent marketplace for the Saudi government by using the technology of Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud division.
An anonymous source said that Global AI, an American technology company, is also planning a multibillion-dollar cooperation with Humane. Cisco Systems, the world’s largest networking equipment maker, is also in business with Humane.
Saudi venture capital firm STV launched an AI fund worth $100 million (about 1,414 won) under Google support and plans to support infrastructure development or invest in early start-ups in the Middle East.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is accompanying President Trump as CEO of a major U.S. company on his visit to the Middle East, also said at the “Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum” that he obtained permission to use some of Starlink in Saudi Arabia.
Starlink is a satellite Internet service operated by SpaceX, a space company owned by Musk. The approval will allow Starlink to provide satellite Internet to aircraft and ships in Saudi Arabia.
Musk also mentioned plans to introduce Tesla’s self-driving robotaxi to Saudi Arabia and said he introduced Tesla’s humanoid robot “Optimus” to President Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
