UAE anchors AI supply push in Washington

The UAE has moved to deepen technology cooperation with the United States and allied economies through the second Pax Silica Summit in Washington, DC, placing secure artificial intelligence supply chains, advanced infrastructure and trusted cross-border deployment at the centre of its expanding AI diplomacy.

The delegation, led by Saeed Al Hajeri, Minister of State, joined officials from dozens of partner economies and senior figures from global technology companies at a summit designed to reduce vulnerabilities in the systems that power AI. The gathering focused on the full stack of AI capability, from energy and critical minerals to semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, cloud infrastructure and large models.

The UAE joined 35 countries in the Joint Statement on AI Opportunities, a declaration intended to align partner economies around secure, resilient and innovation-led AI development. The move places Abu Dhabi more firmly inside a US-led framework that is seeking to build trusted technology networks at a time when governments are reassessing exposure to concentrated supply chains and geopolitical pressure points.

Omran Sharaf, Assistant Foreign Minister for Advanced Science and Technology, was part of the UAE delegation, alongside national technology players including G42, Core42, MGX and the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority. Their presence signalled that the UAE is approaching AI cooperation not only as a diplomatic priority but also as an industrial strategy covering capital, infrastructure, regulation and deployment.

Al Hajeri said the UAE and the US had built a strategic partnership grounded in shared ambition, describing Pax Silica as a practical framework for turning that ambition into concrete projects. He said the UAE was proud to be among the first Gulf states to join the initiative and would support it through investments, joint projects and the trust built over more than five decades of relations with Washington.

The summit also gave the UAE a platform for bilateral engagements with the US and other Pax Silica participants, including Qatar, Finland, India, Israel, the European Union, South Korea, Norway, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Singapore and the UK. Those discussions centred on cooperation under the Pax Silica framework, including infrastructure resilience, responsible AI deployment and opportunities for private-sector partnerships.

The UAE’s participation comes as Washington is expanding the initiative beyond its initial group of technology-aligned partners. The European Commission has joined the effort, while the Netherlands and Italy have also moved into the framework. Other participants and signatories include Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea and India, reflecting a broader attempt to shape AI supply chains around trusted partners rather than fragmented national systems.

The policy push is unfolding against a more competitive technology backdrop. Governments are concerned that AI systems depend on a small number of suppliers for high-performance chips, cloud capacity, energy-intensive data centres and specialised inputs such as critical minerals. Any disruption in those areas can affect model development, defence applications, financial systems, public services and industrial automation.

For the UAE, the summit aligns with a wider strategy to become a global AI hub. Abu Dhabi has already positioned G42 as a central player in sovereign AI infrastructure, cloud services and sector-specific applications. Microsoft’s $1.5 billion investment in G42 strengthened the company’s links with the US technology ecosystem, while new responsible AI and language-model initiatives in Abu Dhabi have added a governance dimension to the partnership.

The planned 5GW UAE-US AI campus in Abu Dhabi has added further weight to that strategy. Led by G42 in cooperation with US technology partners, the project is intended to provide large-scale AI-grade compute capacity and serve markets across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Its first phase is expected to deliver 1GW of capacity, making it one of the most ambitious AI infrastructure projects outside the US.

MGX, the Abu Dhabi-backed investment platform focused on AI and advanced technology, has also become part of the UAE’s strategic toolkit. The firm’s role in global AI infrastructure finance gives the country influence beyond domestic deployment, extending into data centres, computing capacity, model ecosystems and long-term technology capital.

Sharaf has framed the UAE’s approach as “strategic autonomy through international collaboration with trusted partners”, a formulation that captures the balance many mid-sized technology powers are trying to strike. The UAE wants access to frontier systems and trusted infrastructure, but it also wants enough domestic capability to avoid dependence on any single supplier or jurisdiction.

That balance is becoming more important as AI export controls, chip restrictions and data governance rules shape access to frontier technologies. The US wants allies and partners to build on its AI platforms and infrastructure, while other countries are also exploring sovereign AI capacity and alternative models. China’s rapid progress in low-cost and open-weight AI systems has intensified that contest, especially in emerging markets.