OpenAI has reached agreements across the energy, investment and government sectors in the United Arab Emirates, expanding its presence as it seeks more financing from the region. The arrangements cover uses of the company's artificial intelligence models, from investment analysis to making government policies and regulations readable by machines.
Chief Executive Sam Altman met with Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi's crown prince and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council. The Abu Dhabi Media Office said on Monday, November 2, that the meeting came as OpenAI secured arrangements for its models to be used across several sectors.
The agreements include a deal involving the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, known as ADNOC, and G42 to deploy OpenAI's frontier technology. In a separate agreement focused on investment analysis, sovereign investor Mubadala joined Inception42 and OpenAI to apply advanced AI capabilities to that work.
Government use is another part of the expansion. The Abu Dhabi Government announced an initiative with OpenAI to convert policies and regulations into a machine-readable format. Inception42 and OpenAI also agreed to a five-year arrangement aimed at enabling the adoption of frontier AI in government, enterprise and education.
The agreements come alongside OpenAI's latest effort to raise capital. CNBC reported on Saturday that the company was seeking $20 billion in a new funding round co-led by investors from the UAE. Both OpenAI and rival Anthropic have sought support from Middle Eastern investors as they pursue increasingly large amounts of financing to support their growth.
Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX has already backed both companies. It co-led Anthropic's $30 billion fundraising round in February and OpenAI's $122 billion round in March. Those investments form part of the Middle East's emergence as a major AI hub in recent years, with large U.S. technology companies signing agreements to build huge data centers there. Ongoing conflict, however, has tested the region's appeal.
In a statement, Altman praised Abu Dhabi and the UAE's efforts to integrate AI into both public and private institutions and broaden access to its benefits. He said OpenAI was proud to support the country's ambitions, describing the partnership as grounded in a shared commitment to safety, accessibility and responsible innovation.
