Microsoft is making a $1.5 billion investment into United Arab Emirates-based AI company, Group 42 Holding (G42), that will bring its AI technology to the UAE and other countries, it said Tuesday.
G42’s AI applications and services will run on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, which allows customers to build, run, and manage AI applications. The two companies said they will partner on providing advanced AI services to global public sector clients and enterprises, as well as AI infrastructure to countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa, giving them “equitable access to services to address important governmental and business concerns while ensuring the highest standards of security and privacy.”
Both Microsoft and G42 will support a $1 billion development fund for developers to build an AI workforce and talent pool in the UAE and surrounding region. Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft, will also join G42’s board of directors.
“Our two companies will work together not only in the UAE, but to bring AI and digital infrastructure and services to underserved nations,” Smith said in a statement. “We will combine world-class technology with world-leading standards for safe, trusted, and responsible AI, in close coordination with the governments of both the UAE and the United States.”
In August, G42 introduced “the world’s most advanced” Arabic large language model (LLM) called Jais. It will be offered on Azure, Microsoft said.
H.H. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, chairman of G42 — and an Emirati royal, son of the UAE founder Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan — called the investment “a pivotal moment in our company’s journey of growth and innovation, signifying a strategic alignment of vision and execution between the two organizations.” The partnership, he added, “is a testament to the shared values and aspirations for progress, fostering greater cooperation and synergy globally.”
In January, G42 came under scrutiny by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, who raised concerns over the firm’s connections to blacklisted Chinese firms, such as Huawei and Beijing Genomics Institute, China’s military, and its intelligence services.
“Multiple U.S. companies that develop and sell export-controlled technology and products maintain extensive commercial relationships with G42 and its subsidiaries, to include Microsoft, Dell, and OpenAI,” Gallagher wrote in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “Without restrictions on G42, the hardware and software developed by these U.S. companies are at significant risk for diversion to G42’s PRC-based affiliates, many of which support the CCP’s surveillance state and human rights abuses.”
Gallagher alleged G42 chief executive Peng Xiao “operates and is affiliated with an expansive network of UAE and PRC-based companies that develop dual-use technologies and materially support PRC military-civil fusion and human rights abuses.”
G42 denied the allegations in Gallagher’s letter.
Microsoft said its commercial partnership with G42 “is backed by assurances to both governments through a first of its kind agreement to apply world-class best practices to ensure the secure, trusted, and responsible development and deployment of AI.” It added that both companies are committed to “comply with US and international trade, security, responsible AI, and business integrity laws and regulations.”
Both companies developed an Intergovernmental Assurance Agreement to govern the partnership “in close consultation with both the UAE and US governments,” Microsoft said.