Microsoft to ship 60,000 Nvidia AI chips to UAE under US-approved deal
WASHINGTON– Microsoft said Monday it will ship Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips to the United Arab Emirates in a deal approved by the U.S. Commerce Department.
The Redmond, Washington, software giant said licenses approved in September under “strict” safeguards allow it to ship more than 60,000 Nvidia chips, including the California manufacturer’s advanced GB300 Grace Blackwell chips, for use in data centers in the Middle Eastern country.
The deal appears to contradict President Donald Trump’s remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast Sunday that such chips would not be exported outside the United States.
Asked by CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell if he would allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips to China, Trump said he would not.
“We will let them deal with Nvidia but not on the most advanced terms,” Trump said. “The most advanced, we will leave them to no one other than the United States.”
The UAE’s ability to access chips is linked to its commitment to invest $1.4 trillion in US energy and AI projects, an outsized sum given that its annual GDP is around $540 billion.
The UAE Ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, said in a statement earlier this year that the agreement “sets a new ‘gold standard’ for securing AI models, chips, data and access.”
Microsoft’s announcement on Monday was part of the company’s planned $15.2 billion investment in technology in the United Arab Emirates, a country with one of the highest per capita use of AI. Microsoft had already accumulated more than 21,000 Nvidia graphics processor chips, known as GPUs, in the UAE through licenses approved under then-President Joe Biden.
“We use these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open source vendors, and Microsoft itself,” a company statement said.
