The U.S. has granted permission for G42, a datacenter AI company from the UAE, to procure advanced Nvidia AI processors, such as the H100 and H200, Semafor reports. This approval is a significant step forward for G42 in particular, which already collaborates with Cerebrus on various markets, and the UAE in general, which strides to diversify its economy into new markets, which happen to be AI.
G42 has been working for quite a long time to secure Nvidia's H100 processors, which are now beginning to be deployed. The UAE has made substantial investments in its AI infrastructure, focusing on data security as it attempts to become a major player in the global AI market. However, given the dominance of Nvidia in the AI sector generally due to the versatility of the CUDA technology, it is close to impossible to build a competitive infrastructure without Nvidia's GPUs.
To gain approval for the Nvidia processors, G42 took significant measures to meet U.S. security standards. As part of its general strategy, G42 ceased its business ties with Chinese firms in late 2023, effectively betting on its relationship with the U.S. for future technological growth and a way to move beyond oil dependency.
This divestment from China was crucial in addressing concerns within the Biden administration about the UAE’s partnerships with Chinese companies, particularly in the AI space.
The company ensured its datacenters were built with hardware from Western suppliers, excluding Chinese components. Next up, G42's datacenters use military-grade encryption and have isolated compute systems from other components like security cameras and cooling systems. This separation reduces the risk of hackers accessing servers through vulnerabilities in other hardware. Older datacenters were purged of any Chinese parts, even if they were unused to prevent any potential backdoor access by foreign powers.
There is a catch though and that catch is Microsoft. This company played a key role in G42 by investing $1.5 billion in the company. This investment strengthens the collaboration between the two companies and allows Microsoft to expand its Azure cloud business in emerging markets. When it comes to compliance with regulations, Microsoft is a company that knows the game of being compliant with regulators.
