UAE sovereign entities formalize AI deals with OpenAI

Abu Dhabi’s state institutions moved on Monday to formalize a deeper partnership with OpenAI, as the UAE’s sovereign entities signed agreements bringing advanced artificial intelligence into government-adjacent sectors and investment decision-making. The announcements, made at the ADIPEC conference in Abu Dhabi, came as OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan while attending the country’s largest oil and gas gathering.

The most significant of the deals places the state energy firm ADNOC at the center of OpenAI’s regional ambitions. ADNOC and the artificial intelligence firm G42 signed an agreement with OpenAI to deploy advanced AI capabilities across the energy company’s operations. According to ADNOC chief executive Sultan Al Jaber, the arrangement will make ADNOC the first company in the energy sector to deploy OpenAI’s frontier technology.

The signing reflects a deliberate alignment between Abu Dhabi’s state-backed enterprises and the ChatGPT maker, whose ties to the Emirates continue to deepen. Al Jaber framed the agreement as an institutional commitment to applying frontier AI within a strategic national industry.

Altman, speaking at the event, identified energy as one of the central constraints facing his company, saying its most advanced models would be used to address “the hardest, most valuable problems” that ADNOC faces. “We can bring down the cost of delivering great AI in almost every way, except, you know, atoms are still atoms and the physical world that has to power this, I think that is going to be the very dominant factor of the cost and the abundance and how much we can create,” he said. He described the deal as “another step” in the relationship between OpenAI and the UAE.

The agreements extend beyond the energy sector. The Abu Dhabi Media Office said OpenAI had signed deals with other Abu Dhabi vehicles, including the sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and Inception42, a unit of G42, to apply advanced AI capabilities to investment analysis, opportunity identification and risk assessment. The breadth of the signings underscores how the emirate’s most powerful financial and industrial institutions are positioning AI deployment as a matter of strategic policy rather than isolated commercial procurement.

Meanwhile, the commercial backdrop is significant. OpenAI is racing to secure investor commitments before rival Anthropic’s expected public market debut in mid-November, a speedy fundraising that could value the company at more than $1.4 trillion, Reuters reported, citing sources. Among the prospective investors is MGX, an Abu Dhabi-based firm. OpenAI is also a partner in the first phase of a 5-gigawatt AI data centre project, one of the biggest outside the US, that the UAE is building in partnership with American technology companies.

The conference itself unfolded against a tense regional and geopolitical backdrop. Altman attended after US oil firms ExxonMobil and Chevron last week cancelled plans for their executives to travel to the Gulf country and join the event, citing security concerns. Fears of US attacks on Iran and retaliatory strikes by Tehran have gripped oil markets in recent days. US President Donald Trump has said he would not launch an attack on Iran before the US midterm elections on November 3, but on Friday he said Washington may carry out another military operation against Iran.

Despite those absences, the gathering proceeded with substantial corporate participation, as executives from firms including BP, Italy’s Eni and Baker Hughes were present at the event. For Abu Dhabi’s leadership, the week’s signings serve as a public demonstration that the emirate’s state institutions, from its energy champion to its wealth funds, are proceeding with a long-term strategy of embedding American AI technology within the machinery of government-directed industry, even as regional security concerns keep some Western energy executives away. Whether that strategy holds its momentum may depend on how the region’s security picture develops in the weeks ahead.