OpenAI signs Abu Dhabi deals spanning energy, investment and government

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met Sheikh Khaled, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and chairman of the Executive Council, and witnessed the signing of several cooperation agreements with Abu Dhabi entities, according to the Abu Dhabi Media Office and CNBC. The deals span energy, investment and government use cases. In the energy segment, ADNOC, G42 subsidiary Inception42 and OpenAI agreed to deploy OpenAI’s frontier models in ADNOC operations, with the company described as the first in the energy sector to use the technology. The capabilities are based on GPT models and will run on inference infrastructure located in the UAE. On the investment side, sovereign investor Mubadala, Inception42 and OpenAI agreed to use advanced AI for investment analysis, opportunity identification and risk assessment. Abu Dhabi’s government also launched a “machine-readable government” initiative with OpenAI to convert some policies and regulations into machine-readable formats for routine licensing and compliance reviews, while final decisions remain with government officials. A separate five-year agreement between Inception42 and OpenAI will support AI adoption across government, business and education in the UAE. CNBC also said OpenAI is seeking to raise up to about $20 billion in a new funding round, with UAE investors set to co-lead.