UAE touts 97% AI tool adoption and $100B+ infra partnership push

The UAE is positioning itself as one of the world’s densest AI infrastructure hubs, and Al‑Ittihad’s numbers—97% tool usage, 450,000 programmers and hundreds of billions of dirhams in investment—underline how aggressively it’s leaning in. The piece details mega‑projects like a 5‑gigawatt UAE‑U.S. AI compute campus in Abu Dhabi and the “Stargate Emirates” initiative, alongside an MGX‑led partnership that now reportedly includes Nvidia and xAI as infrastructure partners. ([aletihad.ae](https://www.aletihad.ae/news/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA/4633424/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D9%83%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B5%D8%B7%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B9%D9%8A---97--%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AE%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%88450-%D8%A3%D9%84%D9%81-%D9%85%D8%A8%D8%B1%D9%85%D8%AC-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%88))

From an AGI race perspective, the Gulf is becoming a strategic swing region for compute: U.S. and Chinese labs alike will want access to these high‑density, energy‑rich data center clusters, especially as export controls and domestic grid constraints bite. Co‑investment from firms like Microsoft, BlackRock and Nvidia suggests the UAE is not just buying technology but embedding itself into the capex and revenue streams of top‑tier AI companies. That tightens political and economic bonds in ways that will matter when decisions about model access, safety protocols and export constraints are made.

If the usage and developer numbers are even directionally right, the UAE also serves as a live experiment in how a small, wealthy state can drive rapid AI adoption across government, agriculture, energy and services. The upside is faster diffusion of AI productivity; the downside is that such a concentrated AI/compute footprint could become systemically important very quickly.