Qatar’s former ruler was once dubbed “The Man Who Bought London.” At the height of its spree, Qatar owned over 500 acres of prime property in the UK capital, including landmarks like The Shard, Harrods, and vast swathes of Canary Wharf.

But now, the Gulf’s super-rich, Qataris, the Saudis, and the ruler of Abu Dhabi, are moving on from being property tycoons. Their new obsession? Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and next-gen data infrastructure. Yes, we could call them tech sheikhs.

During Donald Trump’s recent trip to the region, all eyes were on the gleaming Qatari 747 he’s planning to convert into his personal Air Force One. But the real action surrounded huge tech deals signed during his Gulf swing.

The richest Arab sheikhdoms aim to build enormous projects to make them world AI leaders. In Abu Dhabi, state-backed tech company G42 is constructing a 5GW hyperscale data centre across 10 square miles, with OpenAI as anchor tenant. For scale: OpenAI’s flagship Stargate centre in Fort Worth, Texas, is just 1.2GW. The US has inked a preliminary deal to supply 500,000 Nvidia H100 chips, among the world’s most powerful AI processors, to G42 by year-end. Strategic partners include Microsoft and Nvidia, deepening the UAE’s alignment with Silicon Valley.

Take a hop across the glittering Gulf to Saudi Arabia. There, government-backed Humain aims to become a global AI behemoth. It’s expected to purchase hundreds of thousands of Nvidia’s GPUs and has already struck deals with Cisco, Amazon, and Global AI to build an “AI Zone” featuring data centres, servers, and training infrastructure.

Yes, Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi met a terrible fate. But Trump is a businessman, and Khashoggi’s grisly death was never going to deter him from making deals.

Other tech companies are also racing into Gulf markets. US chipmaker AMD, Nvidia’s main rival, will collaborate with Saudi Arabia on a $10-billion AI initiative that includes supplying chips and software for data centres.

Tiny Gulf states like Bahrain and Kuwait also aim to build digital economies, though on a more modest scale. The Trump trip wasn’t only about technology. Qatar Airways has signed up to buy 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliners, tentatively priced at $96 billion. The Qataris are also looking to purchase defence equipment from companies like Raytheon. Saudi Arabia is expected to use Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network for aviation and shipping.

There’s a downside to the tech deals. The Biden administration held back from major chip sales due to fears Gulf countries might pass the technology to China. But Trump’s team argues American companies must seize the moment and lock in regional partnerships before Beijing regains influence. They frame it as an economic opportunity and a national security imperative.

Gulf countries, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have been scaling back tech cooperation with China, seemingly to reassure Washington and secure access to US innovation.

Still, critics warn handing over powerful high technology, which can be used for surveillance, to authoritarian regimes with poor civil liberty and press freedom records is deeply risky. The fear is AI built for commerce could be weaponised for mass monitoring and repression.

Not unexpectedly, the Trump family is also eyeing plans to construct hotels and other complexes in the Gulf. As always with Trump, there’s an undercurrent of personal profit mixing with state affairs.

Implications for India

For India, which has over 8 million citizens working across the Gulf and deeply integrated economic links, the Tech Sheikhs’ rise presents risk and opportunity.

India’s large IT service companies, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, have the scale and experience to support AI rollouts across sectors like healthcare, logistics, smart cities, and education. But they must move quickly and align with Gulf-led projects to stay relevant.

As Pareekh Jain, CEO of Pareekh Consulting, puts it: “When AI is implemented in different industries like healthcare, energy, smart cities, and education, then our IT companies can benefit to some extent.”

There’s also a strategic angle: India must monitor the digital rebalancing of power. As the Gulf pivots from oil to AI, it’s aligning itself more tightly with the next wave of global tech leadership. The US is re-establishing dominance in a region it once viewed only through an energy lens.

What should India learn from all this? Technology is moving at a blistering pace. To ensure we aren’t left behind, we need to invest aggressively in AI — possibly the money will have to come from the government — and semiconductor ecosystems and engage with Gulf AI initiatives.

If we don’t, we risk being bystanders to this new digital empire. The Gulf is moving fast. We can’t afford to blink.

Gulf countries have been scaling back tech cooperation with China, seemingly to reassure Washington and secure access to US innovation

Published on May 20, 2025