(Sept 4): Executives at Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence (AI) firm G42 have held exploratory talks over potentially selling a majority stake to American companies, people familiar with the matter said, as it races to guarantee access to high-tech chips beyond next year.
That would mark a radical reshaping of the company, which is overseen by an influential member of the royal family and was set up about eight years ago to lead Abu Dhabi’s first big foray into technology.
G42 was recently allowed to purchase cutting-edge AI chips without a US licence until around April 2027, but needs to change its corporate structure for continued access. Executives are now considering a range of options to overcome that hurdle, people familiar with the matter said, declining to be identified as the information is confidential.
Proposals being discussed include potentially bringing in a US company as a majority shareholder or setting up an entirely new vehicle in America, the people said. No final decisions have been made.
A representative for G42 declined to comment.
G42 already counts prominent US names like private equity firm Silver Lake and tech giant Microsoft Corp as investors, alongside the US$385 billion (RM1.56 trillion) Abu Dhabi wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co. Bloomberg News reported earlier this week the firm is holding exploratory talks with potential investors to raise billions of dollars.
The company operates businesses spanning cloud computing, data centres and AI applications, and has forged partnerships with some of the world’s biggest technology companies. It’s building a 5-gigawatt UAE-US AI Campus in Abu Dhabi, using semiconductors supplied by Nvidia Corp.
Longer-term access to the most sophisticated chips would bolster the firm and Abu Dhabi’s ambitions across AI. As part of those goals, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has forged deeper ties with US and despite a regional war, a top official said the country is ahead of schedule to invest US$1.4 trillion in America.
That target would be helped by the Trump administration’s move to ease export restrictions on the UAE, Minister of Foreign Trade Thani Al Zeyoudi told Bloomberg News in July. He dismissed arguments from some national security hawks in Washington that exporting high-end chips to the UAE will enable China to access such technology and slow the AI rollout in the US.
G42 is overseen by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan — the UAE’s national security adviser, a brother to Abu Dhabi’s ruler, and a chief architect of his country’s push into AI.
Among the world’s most influential dealmakers, Sheikh Tahnoon controls a vast network of companies, with ties across the top echelons of global business and finance. That includes MGX, which counts Mubadala and G42 as founding partners and aims to invest as much as US$10 billion in the AI sector each year.
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