8 months ago
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By Alexander Cornwell
DUBAI (Reuters) - President Joe Biden will host the United Arab Emirates president on Monday for a visit set to include White House talks on the Gulf state's plans for artificial intelligence, an ambitious effort also drawing interest from U.S. geopolitical rival China.
The UAE, a wealthy oil producer and longtime security partner of the U.S., is hoping for greater access to American technology to build its own advanced tech industry.
G42, the state-backed technology company, has already secured a $1.5 billion investment from Microsoft, partnered with chipmaker Nvidia and is using supercomputers built by Cerebras Systems.
But the U.S. has been concerned about the UAE's warm relationship with China and placed restrictions on exports of some American technology to the UAE and other Middle Eastern states over concerns that it could be shared with Beijing.
Under pressure from the Biden administration, G42 this year began ripping out Chinese hardware it was using and sold off Chinese investment so it could work more closely with American firms. That preceded the $1.5 billion Microsoft investment.
"We cannot let this sort of wave of technological breakthroughs pass by us and not be somehow in partnership with it," Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE's president told journalists on Thursday ahead of the White House visit.
The White House has said Biden and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to discuss areas of deepening cooperation like advanced technology, artificial intelligence, investments and space exploration.
It will be the first time a UAE president visits the White House, although Sheikh Mohamed, as crown prince of Abu Dhabi, visited the White House in 2015 to meet President Barack Obama and in 2017 to meet President Donald Trump. Sheikh Mohamed met President Biden in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2022.
The UAE president is also due to meet Vice President Kamala Harris and leaders from the American business community.
AI AMBITIONS
The UAE is pouring billions of dollars into artificial intelligence, which has included the development of Arabic and Hindi language chatbot applications similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Emirati officials believe the Gulf state's bet on artificial intelligence will strengthen its international clout by making it a key economic actor long after demand for oil has dried up.
"We are in a position to be a pivotal country in this new information and technology age," said Faisal Al Bannai, Sheikh Mohamed's adviser on strategic research and advanced technology.