Four agreements, one meeting. OpenAI signed them in Abu Dhabi on Monday, putting its models inside the state oil company, a sovereign wealth fund and the emirate’s own permit checks. It comes two days after CNBC reported that UAE investors are co-leading OpenAI’s new funding round of up to $20 billion.
What was signed
The deals were signed after Sam Altman met Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, according to the Abu Dhabi Media Office. No money figures were given for any of them.
The biggest name is ADNOC, the national oil company. With G42’s subsidiary Inception42, it will build OpenAI’s models into its operations and its investment and commercial decisions. The statement calls ADNOC the first energy company to deploy OpenAI’s frontier technology. The models will run on computers inside the UAE.
The second deal is the most unusual. Abu Dhabi has started turning a set of its rules and regulations into a form an AI system can read. The AI then helps officials with routine checks, such as whether a permit or certificate should be issued. Each check can be traced back to the rule behind it, and officials still make the final call. The first pilot is already live at the emirate’s food safety authority, covering food imports.
Mubadala, one of Abu Dhabi’s state investment funds, will use OpenAI’s models with Inception42 to analyse investments and weigh risk. The fourth deal is a five-year agreement for Inception42 and OpenAI to bring AI into government, business and education across the UAE.
“Abu Dhabi and the UAE are setting a bold, global standard for AI integration across both the public and private sectors,” Altman said in the statement.
The money behind it
OpenAI is now seeking up to $20 billion, down from a target of about $30 billion, CNBC confirmed on Saturday, with UAE investors leading the round alongside the investment firm Coatue. The Financial Times put the valuation at $1.25 trillion and said OpenAI would gain the option to lease new computing capacity in the region, Reuters reported. OpenAI has not confirmed the terms.
Abu Dhabi money isn’t new to OpenAI. MGX, an Abu Dhabi investment firm, co-led its $122 billion raise in March, CNBC notes. We covered the smaller round in Saturday’s DailyAI Briefing.
Why it matters
Monday’s statement doesn’t mention the funding round, but the timing is hard to miss. A UAE group that includes the state-backed fund MGX is expected to be the round’s biggest investor, the FT reported, and Abu Dhabi’s state bodies are now OpenAI customers too. The permit pilot is the part to watch, because it is a working test of AI checking real applications against real law, with a human signing off.
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