A. SREENIVASA REDDY (ABU DHABI)
The UAE is a global leader in the field of artificial intelligence, Peng Xiao, Chief Executive Officer of G42, said, underscoring the country’s early and deliberate push to position AI as a core national priority.
Speaking in a video interview with Bloomberg Television’s Joumanna Bercetche, Xiao said the UAE embraced artificial intelligence well before it became a global trend. “As you know, the UAE launched Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence back in 2018. Even a year before that, the UAE launched a federal Ministry of Artificial Intelligence,” he said.
The UAE was among the first countries to recognise the potential of AI as a national utility, Xiao said. “Ever since, the UAE has been forming partnerships around the world, knowing that AI cannot be developed by a single company or a single nation,” he added.
He said the UAE’s principal partners in this effort have been American technology companies. “The most important step we undertook last year in this global AI movement was in May, when President Donald Trump visited Abu Dhabi. We announced the build-out of the largest AI campus outside the United States, with as much as five gigawatts of national power resources being devoted to it,” Xiao said.
Work on the AI campus is progressing at speed. “Right now, as we speak, we have more than 7,000 construction workers and over 100 cranes operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the Abu Dhabi desert,” Xiao said.
He added that the first 200 megawatts of capacity are expected to come online within the next couple of months. “The plan is to add between 200 and 500 megawatts of additional capacity per quarter on an ongoing basis, eventually building out the full five gigawatts in the coming years,” he said.
Xiao described the approval of advanced AI chips from the United States as a defining moment for the project, while noting that progress in the AI ecosystem is rarely straightforward. “In the complex world of AI, nothing is ever entirely simple,” he said. “But over the past six months since the May summit in Abu Dhabi, we’ve made tremendous progress.” He added that the first batch of the most advanced AI chips is expected to be shipped to the UAE within the next couple of months.
The chips will be sourced primarily from Nvidia, alongside other suppliers. “They are mostly Nvidia, but we have also received licences for Cerebras chips — a company we backed as a startup in California — as well as AMD,” Xiao said.
Addressing concerns globally about the scale of capital expenditure in AI and the ability to generate returns, Xiao said hesitation would be a mistake. He identified three major areas of concern: job security as AI increasingly performs tasks done by humans, the significant power requirements of AI data centres, and the risk of countries being left behind in a global technological race with national security implications.
“These concerns have led some groups to call for a pause,” Xiao said. “I believe that would be a mistake. If the US or its allies pause, others will not. AI diffusion will continue globally, and if our technology does not reach markets first, we risk losing influence and market share.”
He said 2026 should be a year to accelerate investment rather than slow down. “Even where social or economic challenges exist, the US is fortunate to have partners like the UAE, which has reliable, affordable energy and strong connectivity to serve large parts of the Global South,” Xiao said.
On digital infrastructure, Xiao said supply would gradually catch up with demand, but demand for AI inference already far exceeds available capacity. “In training infrastructure, only a handful of large companies will continue to invest heavily,” he said. “However, demand for inference — serving tokens to end users — already far outstrips supply.”
Xiao said the UAE’s participation in the PAX Silica framework with the US on critical materials and semiconductors opens new opportunities for G42. “We fully support the vision to build not just data centres, but the broader global supply chain that supports AI,” he said, adding that G42 aims to become an enabler across multiple layers of the global AI value chain.
He also highlighted G42’s focus on the Global South, citing the UAE’s advantages in abundant energy and global connectivity. “From Abu Dhabi, we can serve nearly four billion people with low latency, reaching markets from Singapore to Milan,” Xiao said. He described G42’s ambition to act as a central “keystone” in what he termed an “intelligence grid” designed to deliver AI to underserved populations worldwide.
On Africa, Xiao said G42 continues to progress projects, including in Kenya, despite local challenges. “Africa is a frontier market that cannot be ignored,” he said. “The challenge is commercialisation and near-term returns, but we are making long-term bets across multiple African nations.”
Finally, Xiao downplayed the notion of regional rivalry in AI, despite ambitions in other Gulf states. “I don’t see this as competition at all,” he said. “It’s positive that the entire region is now engaged in the AI movement — one that Abu Dhabi initiated years ago. The world needs significantly more AI output, and the region’s energy resources and connectivity should be leveraged collectively to serve humanity.”