U.S. greenlights AI chip exports to Gulf tech giants after Saudi Crown Prince's Washington visit

The U.S. has approved income of precocious Nvidia chips to Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN and the United Arab Emirates' G42, authorizing the state-backed firms to bargain up to 35,000 chips, worthy an estimated $1 billion.

The support of these spot exports marks a large reversal for the U.S., which had antecedently balked astatine the thought of nonstop exports to state-backed AI companies successful the Gulf. Export controls were enactment into spot to debar precocious American exertion making its mode to China done the backmost doorway of Gulf Arab states.  

Before erstwhile President Joe Biden near bureau successful January, helium administered a last circular of export restrictions connected precocious AI chips, targeting companies similar Nvidia, successful a sweeping effort to support that cutting-edge U.S. intelligence spot retired of China's reach.

Now, President Donald Trump is moving to grow the scope of specified precocious exertion successful bid to "promote continued American AI dominance and planetary technological leadership," the U.S. Commerce Department said successful a statement published connected Wednesday. 

The U.S. Commerce Department approved the spot exports, with the information the state-backed AI outfits hold to "rigorous information and reporting requirements," overseen by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security.

The export support follows Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's travel to Washington this week wherever the Kingdom pledged to walk $1 trillion successful the U.S., up from $600 cardinal primitively committed during Trump's Gulf circuit successful May.

"Even if we don't get to that, some sides person tegument successful the game," Afshin Molavi, elder chap astatine the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, told CNBC's Dan Murphy.

Saudi Arabia's AI institution HUMAIN, backed by its astir $1 trillion Public Investment Fund signed a agelong database of partnerships with Adobe, Qualcomm, AMD, Cisco, GlobalAI, Groq, Luma, and xAI at a U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum held successful Washington, D.C this week. Notably, HUMAIN volition beryllium teaming up with Elon Musk's xAI to physique a 500 megawatt information halfway successful the Kingdom.

"What we privation to bash successful 2026 is to physique the capableness equivalent to what Saudi has built successful the past 20 years, successful 1 year," Tareq Amin, CEO of HUMAIN, said astatine the summit. HUMAIN is hoping to presumption Saudi Arabia arsenic the 3rd biggest planetary AI hub, aft the likes of the U.S. and China.

Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN and UAE's G42 "have the superior to invest, the relationships with Nvidia and the (relationship with the) U.S. government," Kamil Dimmich, spouse and portfolio manager astatine North of South Capital, told CNBC's Dan Murphy successful an interrogation connected Wednesday.

G42 and HUMAIN are "able to usage this to physique retired determination infrastructure, and they privation to leverage that infrastructure to go a planetary hub for compute," Dimmich added.

Just 2 weeks ago, Microsoft secured an export licence for precocious chips to the UAE. Microsoft's cardinal spouse successful the UAE is G42, but the section AI institution was notably absent from the Microsoft announcement, until today.