ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The U. S. and the United Arab Emirates are collaborating on a plan that would allow Abu Dhabi to purchase some of the most advanced American-made semiconductors for its AI development, U. S. President Donald Trump announced Friday from the Emirati capital. "Yesterday, the two countries also agreed to create a path for the UAE to buy some of the world's most advanced AI semiconductors from American companies; it's a very big contract, " Trump said during the U. S. -UAE Business Council breakfast on the final day of his four-day Middle East visit. The "very big contract" likely refers to a reported preliminary deal permitting the UAE to import 500, 000 of Nvidia’s H100 chips annually — the most advanced chips produced by the American company. This would accelerate the sheikhdom’s capability to develop data centers essential for powering its AI models. In recent years, the UAE has heavily invested in AI infrastructure aiming to establish itself as a global technology hub.

Central to this ambition are U. S. semiconductors, which have so far been restricted from Washington’s Arab Gulf allies over national security concerns. That situation may change as the Trump administration plans to repeal a Biden-era “AI diffusion rule, ” which imposed stringent export controls on advanced AI chips—even to U. S. -friendly countries. Nonetheless, veteran security experts and lawmakers, as well as reportedly some members within the Trump administration, have voiced concerns that removing these restrictions could risk sensitive American technology falling into the hands of rivals such as China. Trump’s remarks followed a White House announcement a day earlier about a partnership with the UAE to construct a massive artificial intelligence campus in Abu Dhabi, touted as the largest facility of its kind outside the U. S. The data center will be built by Emirati tech firm G42, which will collaborate with several U. S. companies on the project, according to a Department of Commerce statement. The campus is set to have a 5-gigawatt capacity and cover 10 square miles.