Everyone wants a piece of the enigmatic United Arab Emirates royal Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al-Nahyan. As the steward of a $1.5 trillion empire, including two sovereign wealth funds, Sheikh Tahnoun funnels billions of dollars into initiatives that are helping to transform the Gulf state into a global AI hub. Part of Sheikh Tahnoun’s empire is G42, an AI conglomerate founded in 2018 that has emerged as a Middle East tech titan, with businesses ranging from biotechnology to surveillance. The firm, boasting partnerships with the likes of OpenAI and Cerebras, recently secured a $1.5 billion deal with Microsoft. Sheikh Tahnoun—whose interest in AI goes back to IBM supercomputer Deep Blue’s 1997 defeat of Garry Kasparov in chess—called the Microsoft deal “a pivotal moment” and “a strategic alignment of vision and execution” in a statement. The deal comes after G42 divested from China, in what some see as a strategic move to align the UAE with Western tech giants amid concerns about Beijing’s increasing technological prowess. And earlier this year, the AI-focused fund MGX that Sheikh Tahnoun chairs was reported to be in talks to back OpenAI’s ambitious chip venture.
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