The UAE's ability to secure Nvidia's coveted chips as part of an overall deal with Microsoft marks a major shift in AI adoption.
As part of Microsoft's announcement on Monday that it plans to invest $15.2 billion in the UAE by 2030, the tech giant also spoke of its ability to secure licences for the UAE to obtain 21,500 Nvidia A100 graphics processing units (GPUs) “based on a combination of A100, H100 and H200 chips.”
“Washington doesn't hand out these licences lightly,” Mohammed Soliman, technology analyst and senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told The National, referring to the US Commerce Department.
“It means they're confident in the safeguards, the operator and the bilateral relationship. This is the US saying the UAE belongs inside the American AI ecosystem, not looking elsewhere."
Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE's ambassador to the US, said Monday's news exemplifies the strength and depth of the US–UAE partnership.
It "underscores the UAE’s role as a trusted, forward-looking partner", Mr Al Otaiba said, adding that both nations will benefit.
"We look forward to continued collaboration and future announcements that further our shared commitment to driving progress and excellence in AI.”
Mr Solimon said Microsoft's UAE announcement marks “a shift from blanket restriction to managed diffusion", or adoption.
He pointed to instances over the past year in which UAE officials have given the US security guarantees that would prevent American tech falling into the wrong hands.
In September, Microsoft became one of the first companies to secure export licences to ship its powerful GPUs to the UAE.
The company said the licences would allow it “to ship the equivalent of 60,400 additional A100 chips, in this instance involving Nvidia’s even more advanced GB300 GPUs."
What's all the fuss about?
To train AI models, the sheer volume of computing power made possible by GPUs is necessary.
Some regard AI as potentially the most important and economically lucrative invention since electricity, and countries have sought to protect their AI creations to maintain an advantage. The US and China have both sought to win a race for AI dominance.
An attempt to prevent US companies from exporting AI technology to China and other countries towards the end of President Donald Trump's first term gained momentum under the Biden administration.
Those policies, however, drew fire from companies including Nvidia and Microsoft, who insisted the strategy could cause other countries to use China's technology for AI research, possibly leaving the US on the sidelines.
Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang also continues to lobby Mr Trump to loosen restrictions.
“We need to be in China to win their developers,” Mr Huang told reporters recently, pointing to difficulties in gaining market share and influence in China due to strict US chip export regulations.
“A policy that causes America to lose half of the world's AI developers is not beneficial for the long term and it hurts America more than it hurts them."
Meanwhile, the UAE's promise to implement security measures has helped it to win the vote of confidence from US officials.
“With these chips, the UAE can train and fine-tune large models locally, run heavy inference workloads without shipping data abroad, and give developers across the region access to serious GPU clusters,” Mr Soliman said.
He said the UAE also has an edge in operating the GPUs because of readily available energy and capital.
“The bigger strategic goal is simple: become a trusted place to run GPU-dense workloads and plug into the global AI economy as a real infrastructure hub, not just a customer,” Mr Soliman said.
G42, the UAE's AI and cloud company, also reflected on Microsoft's announcement. Peng Xiao, head of G42, said the deal would help build enduring value for “not just the UAE, but for a more interconnected and intelligent world".
Amazon deal with OpenAI makes waves
Also on Monday, OpenAI announced a new partnership with Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud computing subsidiary, to provide “AWS’s world-class infrastructure to run and scale OpenAI’s core artificial intelligence workloads, starting immediately".
Amazon's stock jumped nearly 5 per cent on the announcement, seen as a major endorsement from OpenAI, one of the world's leading AI firms.
Mr Soliman said that with the deal, OpenAI is making it clear it wants to diversify the cloud services it uses.
“This tells you where frontier AI is heading, it's going multi-cloud and it has to,” he said. “These models are too big for any one provider to handle alone, and there is just not enough compute to go around.”
The OpenAI announcement was also a much-needed boost for AWS as it deals with the fallout from a massive cut last month that affected millions of computers around the world.
Washmen Profile
Date Started: May 2015
Founders: Rami Shaar and Jad Halaoui
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Laundry
Employees: 170
Funding: about $8m
Funders: Addventure, B&Y Partners, Clara Ventures, Cedar Mundi Partners, Henkel Ventures
Final scores
18 under: Tyrrell Hatton (ENG)
- 14: Jason Scrivener (AUS)
-13: Rory McIlroy (NIR)
-12: Rafa Cabrera Bello (ESP)
-11: David Lipsky (USA), Marc Warren (SCO)
-10: Tommy Fleetwood (ENG), Chris Paisley (ENG), Matt Wallace (ENG), Fabrizio Zanotti (PAR)
Company profile
Date started: December 24, 2018
Founders: Omer Gurel, chief executive and co-founder and Edebali Sener, co-founder and chief technology officer
Based: Dubai Media City
Number of employees: 42 (34 in Dubai and a tech team of eight in Ankara, Turkey)
Sector: ConsumerTech and FinTech
Cashflow: Almost $1 million a year
Funding: Series A funding of $2.5m with Series B plans for May 2020
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ETelr%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%2C%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ELaunch%20year%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202014%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E65%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%20and%20payments%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Enearly%20%2430%20million%20so%20far%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
More on Quran memorisation:
'The Lost Daughter'
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Starring: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson
Rating: 4/5
Dengue%20fever%20symptoms
%3Cul%3E%0A%3Cli%3EHigh%20fever%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3EIntense%20pain%20behind%20your%20eyes%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3ESevere%20headache%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3EMuscle%20and%20joint%20pains%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3ENausea%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3EVomiting%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3ESwollen%20glands%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3Cli%3ERash%3C%2Fli%3E%0A%3C%2Ful%3E%0A%3Cp%3EIf%20symptoms%20occur%2C%20they%20usually%20last%20for%20two-seven%20days%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Remaining Fixtures
Wednesday: West Indies v Scotland
Thursday: UAE v Zimbabwe
Friday: Afghanistan v Ireland
Sunday: Final
BULKWHIZ PROFILE
Date started: February 2017
Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce
Size: 50 employees
Funding: approximately $6m
Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait
Top goalscorers in Europe
34 goals - Robert Lewandowski (68 points)
34 - Ciro Immobile (68)
31 - Cristiano Ronaldo (62)
28 - Timo Werner (56)
25 - Lionel Messi (50)
*29 - Erling Haaland (50)
23 - Romelu Lukaku (46)
23 - Jamie Vardy (46)
*NOTE: Haaland's goals for Salzburg count for 1.5 points per goal. Goals for Dortmund count for two points per goal.
The schedule
December 5 - 23: Shooting competition, Al Dhafra Shooting Club
December 9 - 24: Handicrafts competition, from 4pm until 10pm, Heritage Souq
December 11 - 20: Dates competition, from 4pm
December 12 - 20: Sour milk competition
December 13: Falcon beauty competition
December 14 and 20: Saluki races
December 15: Arabian horse races, from 4pm
December 16 - 19: Falconry competition
December 18: Camel milk competition, from 7.30 - 9.30 am
December 20 and 21: Sheep beauty competition, from 10am
December 22: The best herd of 30 camels
Stage 2 results
1 Caleb Ewan (AUS) Lotto Soudal 04:18:18
2 Sam Bennett (IRL) Deceuninck-QuickStep 00:00:02
3 Arnaud Demare (FRA) Groupama-FDJ 00:00:04
4 Diego Ulissi (ITA) UAE Team Emirates
5 Rick Zabel (GER) Israel Start-Up Nation
General Classification
1 Caleb Ewan (AUS) Lotto Soudal 07:47:19
2 Sam Bennett (IRL) Deceuninck-QuickStep 00:00:12
3 Arnaud Demare (FRA) Groupama-FDJ 00:00:16
4 Nikolai Cherkasov (RUS) Gazprom-Rusvelo 00:00:17
5 Alexey Lutsensko (KAZ) Astana Pro Team 00:00:19
The%20specs
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'Nope'
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Jordan%20Peele%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Daniel%20Kaluuya%2C%20Keke%20Palmer%2C%20Brandon%20Perea%2C%20Steven%20Yeun%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
THE BIO
BIO:
Born in RAK on December 9, 1983
Lives in Abu Dhabi with her family
She graduated from Emirates University in 2007 with a BA in architectural engineering
Her motto in life is her grandmother’s saying “That who created you will not have you get lost”
Her ambition is to spread UAE’s culture of love and acceptance through serving coffee, the country’s traditional coffee in particular.
