Few companies have traveled further in search of computing power than G42, and its latest step may be the most consequential yet. The Abu Dhabi artificial-intelligence company is in talks with several American firms about selling a majority stake, and is considering reincorporating itself as a U.S. entity, according to Bloomberg, in a bid to secure a long-term supply of advanced chips from Nvidia and AMD. The talks, if they succeed, would turn one of the Middle East’s flagship AI companies into an American one.
The logic is as simple as the step is drastic. G42’s ambitions depend on access to the most powerful accelerators made, and that access is controlled not by the chip companies alone but by the U.S. government, which restricts exports of advanced semiconductors to protect what it considers national security. Selling control to American investors and reincorporating in the United States would place G42 inside the regulatory perimeter rather than outside it, converting a supply problem into a question of corporate nationality.
The history of G42’s access shows why the company is taking such an extreme step. The U.S. Commerce Department approved in November of last year a license allowing G42 to import as many as 35,000 of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips, and in July it moved the United Arab Emirates into a more permissive export category. The approvals marked a step forward for a company that had been caught in the crosscurrents of U.S.-China technology competition, but the people familiar with G42’s thinking say the window of permission has felt less reassuring as it has stretched.
Nine months is the span that worries them. Export licenses and category classifications can be revised, and companies that build their strategies around current rules are exposed to the next policy shift. G42 has watched other firms discover that access granted can be access narrowed, and the company has concluded that the only durable answer is to become the kind of entity that does not need a license to buy what it wants.
The company’s American connections already run deep. Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in G42 in 2024, a deal that included commitments on AI safety and governance, and the two companies have worked together on AI development. G42 has also partnered with OpenAI and other American firms. The proposed sale would extend those relationships into ownership, bringing American capital and American governance into a company that has positioned itself as the bridge between the Gulf’s money and the West’s technology.
For the American investors involved, the appeal is a stake in one of the most well-funded AI companies outside the United States, with sovereign backing, energy resources and a strategic position between East and West. The talks involve several American firms, and any deal would require approval from U.S. regulators, who have shown increasing willingness to scrutinize foreign investment in sensitive technology and, in this case, American investment in a foreign AI company that touches the same territory.
The reincorporation question is the most unusual part of the plan. Companies rarely change their legal nationality, and doing so involves tax, governance and regulatory consequences that take months to work through. But for G42, the benefit would be clear: a U.S.-incorporated company with American majority ownership would sit on the same side of export controls as Nvidia’s domestic customers, and the question of whether it can buy chips would largely disappear.
The deal would also reshape the competitive balance in the Gulf. G42’s rivals in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have been racing to build AI capabilities, and the region has become a second front in the global competition for compute. If G42 effectively joins the American camp, it would gain an advantage in access to cutting-edge hardware that its regional competitors cannot match, deepening the divide between companies that can navigate Washington and those that cannot.
The strategic meaning of the talks extends beyond one company. G42’s willingness to cede control is an acknowledgment that high-end computing has become a matter of political access rather than market supply, and that no amount of money can buy what governments are unwilling to sell. Every AI company outside the United States and China now faces the same calculation: how much sovereignty are you willing to trade for the chips that define the industry’s frontier?
The talks are at an early stage, according to the people familiar with them, and the terms, the investors and the structure could all change. What is already clear is the direction of G42’s thinking. The company that Microsoft chose as its partner in the Gulf is preparing to become, in effect, an American firm, because the alternative, remaining an Abu Dhabi company dependent on permissions that can be revoked, no longer looks like a viable path to the future it has promised its investors.
