U.S. Rewards U.A.E. with Coveted AI Chips After Iran War

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Senators look to give President Trump authority to impose tariffs on the five largest importers of Russian oil and gas. Plus, in a world first, Australia lays out national guidelines to control how data centers use water and power.

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It's Wednesday, July 15th. I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

The US has given the United Arab Emirates expanded access to highly coveted artificial intelligence chips as a reward for its help with the war against Iran. The UAE has carried out dozens of airstrikes against Iran, intercepted hundreds of missiles, and helped to keep oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Journal Finance reporter Eliot Brown writes that the move caps a years long push by the Gulf state to obtain American technology to diversify its economy. Eliot, what's in this agreement?

Eliot Brown (1:45)

What this agreement does is it moves the UAE from a bucket of countries that includes Yemen and China, and into a bucket that includes Europe and South Korea, and it allows them to purchase unlimited chips, or as many as the market will bear for AI, at least for its flagship AI company, G42, and for any American hyperscalers that are building data centers in the country.

Daniel Bach (2:10)

And what is the hope for how this will change their economy? Previously, the UAE had been treated the same as China. Now it's quite elevated in its access to this technology. What is the hope for the Gulf nation?

Eliot Brown (2:22)

Yeah, the UAE in particular has really made a big part of their strategy to be ahead on AI. They want to become a huge data center hub. And so they're right now building a giant data center outside of Abu Dhabi. They want to build five gigawatts worth, which is the equivalent power of two and a half Hoover Dams.

And so this would be one of the biggest concentrations of data centers for AI in the world. And they just sort of see that as critical to becoming a world leader in AI, which is their goal.

Daniel Bach (2:55)

And what about the timing here? You write that this came after a lengthy lobbying effort.

Eliot Brown (3:00)

Yeah, this has been a huge priority for the leadership in Abu Dhabi, particularly Sheikh Taknoun Bin Zayed, who's the brother of the president and the national security advisor. He's been pushing since the Biden administration, making lots of trips to Washington to unshackle the UAE and let it buy tens of billions of dollars of chips. And so they finally had success here after some smaller successes with both presidents because of their help with the Iran war. And so the way the Commerce Department is casting this in the US is that this is a reward for its help with Operation Epic Fury. Another thing is the UAE has really stood out in other ways as embracing the Trump administration's policies in the first term. They signed the Abraham Accords and were sort of the main power there which established relations and trading between some of the Gulf States and Israel.

Daniel Bach (3:53)

Some people may say it's a reward for Sheik Thaknoon's business dealings with the president. However, we should probably draw the line between him and G42, which you've done so well in your past reporting. How will this amplify those questions of conflict of interest in this specific deal?

Eliot Brown (4:09)

Yes. Sheik Thaknoon controls G42, which is the main beneficiary of this. He also personally invested in an entity that purchased a 49% stake in the Trump family's crypto company, World Liberty Financial.

That essentially meant that four days before the inauguration, Sheik Thaknoon was enriching the president to a large sum. It was the president reported $263 million of gains from that sale in 2025 And that's one of the larger chunks of income he reported for the whole year. And so that's been a huge point of scrutiny for Democrats, for other critics outside the government, as it's the brother of a president of a foreign entity directly enriching the president.