Microsoft announced additional investments in the United Arab Emirates as it looks to expand its data center footprint and capitalize on export licenses.
The Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant has already spent $7.3 billion since 2023, including a $1.5 billion equity stake in Abu Dhabi–based G42, the country’s sovereign AI company. Microsoft said Monday it plans to invest another $7.9 billion from 2026 to 2029.
The funding covers AI and cloud infrastructure, workforce training, and new governance initiatives.
“This is not money raised in the UAE. It’s money we’re spending in the UAE,” Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in a blog post. “And as we do everywhere in the world, we’re focused not just on growing our business but also on contributing to the local economy. This involves bringing together three critical factors — technology, talent, and trust.”
Microsoft said it was the first U.S. corporation to get approval from the Trump administration to receive export licenses from the Commerce Department to ship Nvidia GPUs to the UAE. “We’re using these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source providers, and Microsoft itself,” Smith wrote.
Microsoft says the effort is guided by “technology, talent, and trust,” anchored by a new Responsible AI Future Foundation and a first-of-its-kind intergovernmental assurance framework designed to align its UAE operations with U.S. cybersecurity and data protection standards.
Microsoft has nearly 1,000 full-time employees in the UAE.