The writer is the author of ‘Chip War’
Donald Trump’s dealmaking tour of the Middle East last week saw the sales of Boeing aircraft, the signing of defence contracts and the announcement of oil investments. But the most significant decision may be to allow hundreds of thousands of AI chips to flow to the region.
The US will now allow Nvidia to sell 500,000 AI chips per year to the UAE, according to media reports, while at least 18,000 will be transferred to Saudi Arabia. By comparison, Elon Musk’s world-leading Colossus data centre in Tennessee currently has 200,000 high-end chips on site. If the UAE imports half a million high-end chips annually, by the end of the decade its capacity might outstrip the US-based Stargate project, the joint venture between OpenAI and SoftBank, according to Rand Corporation AI expert Lennart Heim.