(Nov 2): OpenAI signed deals to deploy its technology across energy companies, investment firms and government agencies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), deepening ties as it seeks billions of dollars in funding from the country’s state-backed investors.

The ChatGPT-maker’s chief executive officer Sam Altman travelled to Abu Dhabi for talks with Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Media Office said on Monday in a statement.

Top artificial intelligence (AI) firms, including OpenAI and Anthropic PBC, have turned to deep-pocketed investors in the Middle East to meet their intense capital needs to develop and support cutting-edge AI software. Bloomberg News reported last month that OpenAI was in talks with multiple UAE-based investment funds, including Abu Dhabi-based MGX, to help anchor a US$30 billion (RM122 billion) round of financing.

Under the deals signed on Monday, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co became the first energy company to deploy OpenAI’s frontier technology, according to the statement. Adnoc said separately that OpenAI’s agents will “continuously forecast crude oil supply, demand, prices and margins, predict their impacts before they occur”.

AI “is going to transform the economics of the energy world”, Altman said on Monday at the opening of Adipec, Abu Dhabi’s flagship energy conference.

OpenAI also signed a deal with Mubadala and Inception42 to apply advanced AI capabilities to investment analysis. Alongside the UAE’s Department of Government Enablement, the San Francisco-based company also launched an AI-native Machine-Readable Government initiative.

Altman’s UAE visit came at a time when Gulf states are expressing concerns over a new round of fighting between the US and Iran.  Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said over the weekend that he was “extremely worried” about fresh hostilities, which he said could be more “destructive” than before.

Adipec, where Altman was speaking, was also affected. ExxonMobil Holdings Corp and Chevron Corp cancelled plans to attend the event amid heightened security concerns in the Middle East.

Iran launched thousands of drones and missiles against the UAE during the weeks that followed the outbreak of the US-Iran war in February. The country intercepted a huge majority of those attacks, some of which targeted its infrastructure.

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