Abu Dhabi's artificial intelligence group, G42, has divested its stakes in various Chinese companies, including ByteDance, the owner of TikTok. The state-backed group took this step to assure its US partners by severing ties with China. 42XFund, which is G42's $10bn technology investment arm, stated that it has "divested from all its investments in China" to the Financial Times. Although the fund did not provide details on specific deals or the total size of its investment in China, insiders revealed that the sell-off included shares in ByteDance, valued at approximately $100mn according to PitchBook data. G42, led by the United Arab Emirates, is striving to become a global leader in AI, placing it at the center of the US-China technology rivalry. In December, G42 CEO Peng Xiao informed the FT that the group had to choose sides and was cutting ties with Chinese hardware suppliers like Huawei to foster its relationship with US partners. G42, chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE's influential national security adviser, is involved in various AI projects, ranging from health and life sciences to mapping and extensive language models.

The group has received support from investors like UAE sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and US private equity firm Silver Lake, and has collaborated with US partners such as Microsoft and OpenAI, as well as Chinese tech companies. However, concerns have been raised about G42's relationship with Chinese government-affiliated entities, apprehensions that G42 has tried to address by divesting its Chinese holdings. The New York Times previously reported on US officials' concerns that G42's connections could enable the Chinese government and companies to access American AI systems and acquire genetic data from US citizens. Following suit with G42, 42XFund has divested its Chinese investments. This private equity investor, with a $10bn capital allocation across various sectors, has participated in funding rounds for companies like JD Industrials and Indonesian agriculture technology startup eFishery. ByteDance and JD. com have not commented on the matter. 42XFund has also made investments outside China, and it is reported that OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, has held discussions with Sheikh Tahnoon regarding a potential chip venture to reduce the company's reliance on Nvidia for semiconductors.