Nvidia in the Gulf | Colin Powers

https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/nvidia-in-the-gulf/

Publish Date: 2026-05-28 23:50:00

Source Domain: phenomenalworld.org

In May 2025, Donald Trump embarked on the first overseas trip of his new administration, traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates with a number of Silicon Valley luminaries in tow. The same day he touched down in Riyadh, the President rescinded the Biden-era “Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion,” which had sought to protect strategic technologies by regulating access to US chips. Whereas Biden had imposed detailed export controls as part of his national security program, hoping to contain the rise of China, Trump adopted a more transactional approach, aimed at flooding other countries with tech in order to consolidate American market dominance. 

Trump’s hosts saw a golden opportunity. Pledging up to $1 trillion to US companies for the years ahead, the Saudis were allowed to import 18,000 units of Nvidia’s most advanced Blackwell server, the GB300. The UAE’s Group 42 Holding Ltd (G42)—the technology holding company through which Abu Dhabi runs most of its artificial intelligence (AI) ventures—was meanwhile given permission to import 500,000 units of Nvidia’s H100 chips annually. This marked a striking reversal. For the past two decades, the Gulf has been pumping credit and equity into the American AI ecosystem. Now, while such financial flows have by no means dried up, these countries have also begun to appropriate critical elements of American tech’s infrastructure, bringing them within their own borders. The recent Nvidia deals, and the geoeconomic pivot they represent, pose a number of questions. Why has Washington moved away from its protectionist approach and pursued these commercial ties with the Gulf? Why have Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, in turn, placed such a major bet on AI? What does this mean for US imperial strategy more broadly?

For years, the Gulf’s outward investments have assimilated the region into circuits of accumulation dominated by the giants of the American…

Source

Nvidia in the Gulf | Colin Powers

https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/nvidia-in-the-gulf/

Publish Date: 2026-05-28 23:50:00

Source Domain: phenomenalworld.org

In May 2025, Donald Trump embarked on the first overseas trip of his new administration, traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates with a number of Silicon Valley luminaries in tow. The same day he touched down in Riyadh, the President rescinded the Biden-era “Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion,” which had sought to protect strategic technologies by regulating access to US chips. Whereas Biden had imposed detailed export controls as part of his national security program, hoping to contain the rise of China, Trump adopted a more transactional approach, aimed at flooding other countries with tech in order to consolidate American market dominance. 

Trump’s hosts saw a golden opportunity. Pledging up to $1 trillion to US companies for the years ahead, the Saudis were allowed to import 18,000 units of Nvidia’s most advanced Blackwell server, the GB300. The UAE’s Group 42 Holding Ltd (G42)—the technology holding company through which Abu Dhabi runs most of its artificial intelligence (AI) ventures—was meanwhile given permission to import 500,000 units of Nvidia’s H100 chips annually. This marked a striking reversal. For the past two decades, the Gulf has been pumping credit and equity into the American AI ecosystem. Now, while such financial flows have by no means dried up, these countries have also begun to appropriate critical elements of American tech’s infrastructure, bringing them within their own borders. The recent Nvidia deals, and the geoeconomic pivot they represent, pose a number of questions. Why has Washington moved away from its protectionist approach and pursued these commercial ties with the Gulf? Why have Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, in turn, placed such a major bet on AI? What does this mean for US imperial strategy more broadly?

For years, the Gulf’s outward investments have assimilated the region into circuits of accumulation dominated by the giants of the American…

Source