UAE – Microsoft deal hopes to boost AI evolution in the region

Microsoft’s AI investments and different partnerships in the UAE have the potential to boost economies across the Middle East, a statement made by Microsoft’s president, according to a report by The Nationals on July 11th.

US endeavours with the UAE can help bring technology to other parts of the world, said by Brad Smith, president of Microsoft who also serves as the vice chairman of Redmond, a company based in Washington that is a technology giant in the US.

“I believe and hope it will be a beginning that, you know, will advance economic development and prosperity and societal good in the Middle East itself, in places like the UAE , and Saudi Arabia, and Qatar and the like,” Smith states on July 9th during an interview with the centre for strategic and international studies or CSIS in Washington.

UAE, which is known to be the Arab world’s second largest economy, sought out to be a leader in the AI sector in the Middle East as it seeks to spread its economy away from oil production. Microsoft has been constantly aiding the country’s AI aspirations recently. Microsoft made a $1.5 billion investment in the Emirates’ AI and cloud company, G42 in 2024, which later announced that it would open its research based AI for Good Lab in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Microsoft’s president Brad Smith comments about Microsoft’s recent projects and programmes in the UAE comes several weeks after he told Congress that the US should try to replicate the UAE’s AI strategy.

Smith praised Abu Dhabi’s Tamm government services AI assistant, which acts as a one-stop-shop for government services that includes health care, housing, and police services.

Smith told a US Senate commerce, as well as a science and transport committee hearing “We need to bring it to America” indicating the need for apps that will simplify the process of renewing driver licences, and obtaining different forms and other services.

During Smith’s interview with CSIS, he also spoke in detail about Microsoft’s investment and partnership with UAE’s G42. He states the “financial and technological” relationship between both companies have the potential to pay massive dividends around the world.

“How do you take AI, which requires electricity, and bring it to countries and to people that don’t have electricity?” Microsoft’s president Smith states.

“One is a financial and technology partnership, like what we are advancing between the US and the UAE, Microsoft and G42, so that G42 can build out data centre infrastructure in Africa,” Smith further adds.

During the interview, Smith also addressed the controversial topic of export controls.

“The US has the opportunity to become the world’s leading exporter of not just digital technology services, but AI services in the future,” Smith states. Previously, Microsoft has been a loud critic towards US export control policies which seek to prevent US AI technology from potentially being used by various countries that the US deems to be rivals with, like China.

However, countries like the UAE which were disproportionately affected by certain rules that would have limited their ability to obtain the chips that are necessary to their AI goals. Smith also states that the export rules under former president Joe Biden, would cause ally countries to “worry that an insufficient supply of critical American technology will restrict their opportunities for economic growth.”

Recently, a deal between the UAE and US, called the US-UAE AI acceleration partnership, removed many of the concerns about AI evolution in the UAE, providing the country with a path to obtaining the powerful chips.

The Trump administration states that security guarantees within the partnership aims to prevent US technology from falling into the wrong hands, creating a crucial role in making the deal a possibility.

During the interview with CSIS, Smith briefly spoke about the AI acceleration Partnership, as well as the investment of Microsoft with G42. 

“Let’s do a better jon of packaging ourselves,” Smith states as he talks about the importance of boasting the benefits of partnerships between companies and countries.

“That’s in effect what Microsoft and G42 in the US and UAE have started to do, let’s continue to move in that direction.”

The Nationals, Maghrebi.org