UAE's AI Strategy and Geopolitical Dynamics

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The chapter delves into the UAE's AI strategy post-2018, focusing on becoming a hub for AI development through various initiatives like attracting technical talent, fostering partnerships, and supporting internal AI advancements. It also explores the evolving role of Gulf monarchies in funding tech companies amidst shifting alliances in the AI industry between the United States and China, revealing complex geopolitical dynamics and the involvement of Silicon Valley in the Middle East.

Paris Marx is joined by Nitasha Tiku to discuss how US tech companies are flocking to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to fund their expensive AI ambitions.

Nitasha Tiku is a tech culture reporter at the Washington Post.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Read the pieces Nitasha contributed to on Silicon Valley getting funding from Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and its embrace of the US military.
Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018. There’s still be no accountability.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman met with many Silicon Valley CEOs months before Khashoggi’s murder.
The United Arab Emirates launched its own AI strategy in 2018.
The UAE also put Pegasus spyware on the phone of Khashoggi’s wife months before his murder.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was photographed signing a woman’s chest on June 4.
Many Arab Americans in Silicon Valley have reported being scared to speak out in support of Palestinians for fear of retaliation.