On November 3, as reported by the Financial Times, the United States has, for the very first time, given its approval for Microsoft to export the latest NVIDIA chips to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Earlier in May of this year, Trump struck a deal with the President of the UAE to construct a sprawling artificial intelligence data center campus in Abu Dhabi. This move has effectively positioned the Middle East as one of the pivotal regions in the global artificial intelligence race.

Previously, Microsoft's endeavors in this area faced obstacles due to the stringent export controls imposed by the U.S. Department of Commerce on high-performance NVIDIA chips. In September, Brad Smith, the President of Microsoft, announced that Microsoft had become the inaugural company under the Trump administration to receive approval for exporting NVIDIA AI chips to the UAE. He emphasized that this permission was granted only after Microsoft met exceptionally rigorous cybersecurity, physical security, and other pertinent security standards.

Microsoft has outlined plans to ramp up its investment in the UAE. The investment scale will escalate from $7.3 billion over the past three years to $7.9 billion during the period from 2026 to 2029. Out of this total, $5.5 billion is earmarked for capital expenditures on AI and cloud infrastructure.