Abu Dhabi announced four agreements with OpenAI on Nov. 2, applying its AI technology to energy, government and investment as the emirate seeks wider adoption across its economy.
The Emirates News Agency reported Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan met OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and witnessed the signings. One agreement pairs Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), G42 subsidiary Inception42 and OpenAI to use GPT models with in-country inference infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates. The announcement gave no contract values or timetable for the ADNOC deployment.
A government initiative will convert selected policies and regulations into machine-readable formats for routine compliance checks. Its first pilot is in production at the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority and concerns food imports. Officials retain oversight and accountability for final decisions. Under a separate agreement, Mubadala, Inception42 and OpenAI will apply AI to investment analysis, opportunity identification and risk assessment. A five-year pact between Inception42 and OpenAI addresses AI uptake in government, enterprise and education.
Abu Dhabi described the initiatives as a way to improve efficiency and productivity at ADNOC and support investment analysis. The announcement did not report measured results or costs for the agreements.
The Abu Dhabi announcement followed meetings in South Korea on Oct. 31. Samsung said about 50 executives from its electronics, finance and biotechnology affiliates met Altman at a training center in Yongin. The company said participants considered commercial uses for AI and how it might shape management and company operations. Yonhap and the Seoul Economic Daily reported that SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won had lunch with Altman, joined by executives from SK hynix and SK Telecom; the outlets did not disclose the meeting's agenda.
CNBC reported on Oct. 31 that OpenAI was seeking up to $20 billion, after previously targeting as much as $30 billion. The Financial Times reported a target of about $20 billion. It also reported that a UAE investor consortium including state-backed technology fund MGX was expected to be the largest participant, and that a possible arrangement could give OpenAI an option to lease computing capacity in the region. OpenAI has not publicly confirmed those terms, and Abu Dhabi did not link the four agreements to the fundraising.
The meetings came after earlier infrastructure partnerships and plans. OpenAI, Samsung and SK announced Stargate partnerships in South Korea in October 2025 involving advanced-memory supply and exploration of data-center capacity. Separately, OpenAI's May 2025 Stargate UAE plan outlined a planned 1-gigawatt Abu Dhabi cluster, with 200 megawatts expected to go live in 2026. The Abu Dhabi announcement did not say the new agreements are part of that project.
