The US has granted Microsoft permission to ship the latest Nvidia chips to the United Arab Emirates for the first time, paving the way for the Big Tech group to expand its investment in the Gulf.
US President Donald Trump struck a deal in May with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to build a vast AI data centre campus in Abu Dhabi but Microsoft’s project had been held back by the Department of Commerce’s export controls on the powerful Nvidia chips needed to run the latest AI systems.
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, told the Financial Times on Monday that in September the group became “the first company to receive a licence under the Trump administration” to export Nvidia’s AI chips to the UAE.
“You cannot get those export licenses unless you’re able to meet the requirements that have been imposed by the US government.
“We earned it by satisfying very stringent cybersecurity, physical security and other security requirements,” Smith said. The US had earlier put export controls in place that require U.S. companies like Nvidia to obtain government licenses for advanced chip sales.
Microsoft now plans to increase its UAE investment from $7.3bn over the past three years to more than $7.9bn from 2026 to 2029, of which $5.5bn will go on capital spending for AI and cloud infrastructure.
