(Bloomberg) — A day after his inauguration as US President, Donald Trump unveiled a $100 billion venture to fund artificial intelligence infrastructure, backed by three of the biggest names in tech – OpenAI, SoftBank Group Corp. and Oracle Corp. Then there was an Abu Dhabi-based firm that few had heard of: MGX.
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The Emirati investment vehicle is overseen by one of the world’s most influential dealmakers — Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who’s the United Arab Emirates’ national security advisor, brother to the country’s president, and the man atop a $1.5 trillion empire that spans everything from wealth funds to the region’s foremost AI firm, G42.
Set up in March, with Mubadala Investment Co. and G42 as founding partners and a goal of eventually topping $100 billion in assets, MGX has emerged as a key tool in the country’s push for AI dominance. It plans to contribute about $7 billion to Trump’s plan, known as Stargate, the Information has reported.
Representatives for MGX declined to comment.
The firm has backed OpenAI, while also teaming up with BlackRock Inc. and Microsoft Corp. on a $30 billion plan to build data warehouses and energy infrastructure. It’s poured money into Elon Musk’s xAI, and was among the investors in Databricks Inc., one of the world’s most valuable privately-held tech companies.
It combines the financial heft of the $330 billion Mubadala — itself a significant force in the world of technology investing — with the AI arsenal of G42, a firm that’s drawn funding from Microsoft and signed deals with Nvidia Corp. and OpenAI.
The fund has hired from Mubadala’s ranks, according to posts on LinkedIn, and its CEO, Ahmed Yahia Al Idrissi, was previously head of direct investments at the sovereign wealth fund. MGX recently recruited an executive from Swedish investment firm EQT AB’s sourcing tool, Motherbrain, as Chief AI Architect, and brought on a McKinsey & Co. veteran to source semiconductor deals.
Trillion-Dollar City
Those moves come as Abu Dhabi, which sits atop 6% of global crude reserves, races to diversify its economy away from oil. While investments in sectors like health care and finance have been key planks of that strategy, AI has increasingly been taking center stage.
