UAE wins elite US AI chip deal during Trump trip, eyes global tech lead

• AI deal is major win for Abu Dhabi.
• Trump wraps up Gulf tour focused on business deals.
• UAE commits to greater investments in US energy sector.

President Donald Trump said on Friday the United Arab Emirates and the United States had agreed to create a path for the Gulf country to buy some of the most advanced artificial intelligence semiconductors from US companies, a major win for Abu Dhabi's efforts to become a global AI hub.

Trump also wrapped his Gulf tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE with a pledge by oil power Abu Dhabi - the UAE's capital and richest emirate - to hike the value of its energy investments in the US to $440 billion in the next decade.

He pledged on Thursday to strengthen US ties with the UAE, announcing deals totalling over $200 billion, including a $14.5 billion commitment from Etihad Airways to invest in 28 American-made Boeing aircraft.

"We work together and the money that's made here comes back to us," Trump told Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed during a press conference in Abu Dhabi, touting the business relationship between the US and UAE.

“We've made it work, and you know they were being wooed by others. But there’s no more wooing, I think we’re in pretty good shape,” he said.

"Absolutely," the crown prince said.

The AI deal, finalised on Thursday, is a boost for the UAE, which has been trying to balance its relations with its longtime ally, the US and its largest trading partner, China.

It reflects the Trump administration's confidence that the chips can be managed securely, in part by requiring data centres to be managed by US companies.

"Yesterday the two countries also agreed to create a path for UAE to buy some of the world's most advanced AI semiconductors from American companies, a very big contract," Trump said.

"This will generate billions and billions of dollars in business and accelerate the UAE's plans to become a really major player in artificial intelligence," he added.

Energy investments

The UAE energy investment commitment was announced during a presentation by Sultan Al Jaber, Abu Dhabi state energy giant ADNOC's chief executive, to Trump during the last stage of his regional tour that has drawn huge financial commitments from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The enterprise value of UAE investments in the US energy sector will be boosted to $440 billion by 2035 from $70 billion now, Al Jaber told Trump, adding that US energy firms will also invest in the UAE.

"Our partners have committed new investments worth $60 billion in upstream oil and gas, as well as new and unconventional opportunities," Jaber said in front of a slide showing projects in the UAE under the logos of US companies ExxonMobil, opens new tab, Oxy, opens new tab and EOG Resources, opens new tab.

XRG, the international investment arm of ADNOC, is seeking to make a significant investment in US natural gas, Jaber, who is also XRG's executive chairman and minister of industry and advanced technology, has said.

Already in March, when senior UAE officials met Trump, the UAE had committed to a 10-year, $1.4 trillion investment framework in the US in sectors including energy, AI and manufacturing to deepen reciprocal ties.

"We're making great progress for the $1.4 (trillion) that UAE has announced it intends to spend in the United States," Trump said on his last stop on a Gulf tour that has focused, at least publicly, on investment deals, not security crises in the Middle East, including Israel's war in Gaza.

However, Trump did engage in some diplomacy on his whirlwind meetings with some of the world's biggest energy producers.

He met with Syria's new interim President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Riyadh and said he would order the lifting of sanctions on Syria at the behest of Saudi Arabia's crown prince, a major US policy shift.