The Middle East is becoming the new Silicon Valley in the AI era.
In February 2025, the founder of CambioML posted an article on LinkedIn, stating that he was shifting the company's business focus from Silicon Valley to Dubai.
CambioML is a star AI startup that uses AI for data analysis. It was founded in Silicon Valley and has received support from top venture capital firms such as YC, General Catalyst, and Samsung NEXT. However, now it has chosen to leave here and head towards an area surrounded by yellow sand.
CambioML's choice is not an isolated case. In recent years, more and more AI startups around the world have chosen the Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar) as the first stop for their business development. For example, Wego, FlapKap, DXwand, etc.
In the traditional impression, the Middle East is labeled with desert, oil, war, religion, and royalty. It is full of mystery and danger, and also has countless fascinating wealth. However, such stereotypes are now being broken.
Some people compare it to China 15 years ago, while others compare it to Silicon Valley and even think it is more vibrant than Silicon Valley. AI, autonomous driving, biomedicine, aerospace - the most advanced technologies and businesses are frequently mentioned here.
It can be said that the Middle East has become the most eye - catching AI high - ground after the United States and China.
"The sight before me was amazing. Even in the 45 - degree Celsius heat, the construction sites were bustling! The leaders of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) were enthusiastically talking about how to build an AI - driven future." The founder of CambioML described his first impression of Abu Dhabi like this.
▲ Abu Dhabi under construction
Here, the enthusiasm for AI is as intense as the sun in the desert. However, problems also arise. Why has the Middle East, a region known for its oil, religion, and desert, suddenly transformed into a "holy land" that global AI entrepreneurs are flocking to, surpassing Japan, South Korea, and even Europe?
What has shaped this new "Silicon Valley" of the AI era in the desert?
A Wealthy Region
Back in January 2024, which is the coldest time of the year in the Middle East, a piece of news soon excited the entire region.
Because the Saudi Arabian Mining Company discovered several gold deposits about 100 kilometers south of the Mansoura Masara Gold Mine in central Saudi Arabia. These gold deposits stretch for 125 kilometers, and their gold content is 2 - 4 times that of ordinary gold mines, which is regarded as a world - class discovery.
When the news spread in the country, many netizens exclaimed, "The already wealthy country has become even wealthier," and "They were already rich with oil, and now they are adding gold."
"Wealthy" is almost everyone's first impression of the Gulf countries. We often use the phrase "filthy rich" to describe someone's wealth, but an even more extreme adjective than that is "rich with oil," and the Gulf region is exactly like this. As the world's oil depot, it holds two - thirds of the world's oil reserves.
Because of its wealth, many astonishing and talked - about things have happened in this place.
For example, Dubai and Abu Dhabi use Lamborghinis and Ferraris as police cars; Saudi King Salman brought a gilded escalator with him when he went on a visit; the Burj Al Arab has more than 1,700 square meters decorated with pure gold... These exaggerated ways of spending money have created an extremely vivid "nouveau riche" image for the Gulf countries.
▲ The interior of the Burj Al Arab, with a large area decorated with gold
But now, the spending patterns of these countries have changed.
On May 14, Saudi Arabia promised to provide a $600 - billion order to American companies to purchase advanced chips and services. At the same time, the United Arab Emirates also reached a $200 - billion agreement with the United States. The two sides will jointly build the world's largest AI data center covering an area of about 26 square kilometers in Abu Dhabi.
In addition, the United Arab Emirates generously allowed every UAE resident to use ChatGPT Plus for free. As a paid application, the subscription price for ordinary users is $20 per month. Calculated based on the 10.24 million permanent residents in the UAE, the UAE will spend $2.458 billion on membership fees alone each year.
It can be said that the Gulf countries are almost "throwing money" to pave a way towards AGI. Of course, in addition to the Gulf countries' willingness to "spend money," the global technology industry is also attracted here because of the unique resource advantages here.
As is well - known, AI is a very capital - intensive industry. Besides requiring a huge amount of funds to purchase chips, it also needs sufficient energy to support the inference and training of large models.
It is estimated that the energy consumption for training GPT - 4 is about 1750 MWh, which is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 160 American households. Using ChatGPT once consumes about 0.34 watt - hours. Calculated based on the current more than 1 billion responses per day, operating ChatGPT consumes about 340 MWh per day, which is approximately the average daily electricity consumption of 30,000 American households.
But precisely, the Middle East lacks neither money nor energy.
On the one hand, the abundant oil and gas resources in the Middle East make the electricity cost here only 60% of that in Europe and 55% of that in North America. On the other hand, the unique climate environment in the Middle East is very suitable for large - scale photovoltaic power generation.
A recent United Nations report pointed out that due to the demand for high - power - consuming data centers, the indirect carbon emissions generated by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta during their operations from 2020 to 2023 have increased by an average of 150%. Carbon emissions have become a major problem plaguing technology giants.
Coincidentally, the Middle East has a large number of large - scale photovoltaic power stations. For example, the Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai (with a designed installed capacity of over 5 GW), the Shuaibah Solar Power Station in Saudi Arabia (2.6 GW), the Sudair Solar Power Project (1.5 GW), and the Al Dhafra Solar Project in Abu Dhabi (2.0 GW), etc.
▲ The Shuaibah Solar Power Station in Saudi Arabia, currently the largest photovoltaic project in Saudi Arabia
Currently, these power stations, under the guidance of Middle Eastern countries, have become the main energy suppliers for data centers in the region. For example, the Khazna Data Center in Abu Dhabi (currently the largest data center in the Middle East) uses electricity transmitted from the Al Dhafra Photovoltaic Station.
Of course, the Middle East also lacks some essential conditions for AI development, such as water resources. As mentioned in a previous article by "YouJie UnKnown" (click to read) "Can the data centers on mountains and under the sea bear the blame for AI energy consumption?", the operation of data centers requires a large amount of fresh water. The Middle East definitely lacks water resources, but in the Middle East, problems that can be solved with money are never a problem.
Currently, countries such as the United Arab Emirates are trying various methods to solve the water problem of data centers, such as seawater desalination (using the redundant heat from data centers to provide energy for seawater desalination), centralized cooling (similar to centralized heating), and seawater cooling (placing data centers under the sea).
A large amount of investment and large - scale infrastructure construction all reflect the unremitting efforts of the Gulf countries in developing AI. And all this stems from their "wealth."
As the saying goes, countries blessed with resources will eventually be "cursed" by them. Due to excessive dependence on oil, the Middle East has experienced several economic crises, such as the two oil crises in the 1980s, the Gulf War in the 1990s, and the shale oil revolution in 2015, etc.
The Middle Eastern countries realized the fragility of the oil - based economy early on. Coupled with the fact that oil will eventually be exhausted, they started seeking to break free from the limitations of oil early on.
And AI is the most brilliant and concentrated manifestation in this grand transformation narrative.
Competing for the Middle East
On May 13, the Gulf countries welcomed a special visitor. The presidential plane of US President Trump landed at Riyadh Airport in the capital of Saudi Arabia on that day. Along with Trump, representatives from the US technology industry such as Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, also arrived.
In the following three days, they visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar non - stop. If we don't count the visit to attend the funeral of the former Pope Francis, this Middle East trip is Trump's first state visit since taking office. Before this, US presidents usually visited Canada or Mexico first after taking office.
▲ Trump's plane arrived in Saudi Arabia on May 13, 2025
But this time, Trump broke the previous convention. And along with the "convention," the US's chip export restrictions on the Middle East were also broken.
At the beginning of 2024, in order to prevent advanced chips from flowing into China from the Middle East, the Biden administration issued the "Export Control Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion" and included countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the "Level 2 Control" list, restricting the quantity of advanced US chips they could import. However, during Trump's visit this time, not only was this restriction directly lifted, but US companies also signed a large order with Middle Eastern countries.
The United States and the United Arab Emirates jointly announced that they will build the largest AI data center outside the United States in the UAE, helping the UAE become one of the global artificial intelligence centers.
Companies such as NVIDIA and AMD reached an agreement with Humain, a company with Saudi state - owned background. NVIDIA will sell more than 18,000 cutting - edge Blackwell (GB300) chips to Humain. AMD reached a $10 - billion cooperation with Humain.
In addition, the US government also approved Saudi Arabia to import 500,000 of NVIDIA's most advanced AI chips each year from 2025 to 2027.
An obvious trend is that the United States is changing its previous attitude and accelerating its entry into the Middle East to seize the AI infrastructure construction projects here. Before this, many of these projects were undertaken by Chinese companies.
For example, Alibaba Cloud jointly established a new enterprise with Dubai's National Holding Company Meraas in 2015 to build a data center in Dubai; Huawei cooperated with ADMA - OPCO, the largest offshore oil company in the UAE, to build a data center in 2016. In addition, Huawei and ZTE deployed 5G base stations in major cities in the Middle East; Hikvision and Dahua Technology provided intelligent security and traffic management systems for Saudi cities such as Riyadh and Jeddah.
▲ An event of Alibaba Cloud in Riyadh, the capital of the UAE
Now, with the US intervention, the United States is trying every means to squeeze Chinese companies out of the Middle East market.
For example, in April 2024, Microsoft announced a $1.5 - billion investment in G42, an AI company in the UAE. G42 is a company supported by the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, aiming to promote the development of AI in Abu Dhabi and even the entire UAE.
According to extensive reports, the US government influenced this investment with the aim of weakening China's influence in the Middle East. After investing in G42, they required G42 to reduce its association with China, including divesting its shares in ByteDance and removing Huawei technology used in its operations.
In addition to geopolitical considerations, the main reason for the US to return to the Middle East is that this region is extremely wealthy.
In recent years, Middle Eastern capital has been active in the Chinese market, investing in many emerging industries such as new - energy vehicles, autonomous driving, large AI models, and power batteries. Like China, the United States also needs external investment to promote the development of emerging industries.
Therefore, it can be seen that during Trump's Middle East trip this time, in addition to seizing a large share of the Middle East AI market, he also brought back a large amount of funds from the Middle East.
For example, the UAE and Qatar respectively promised to invest $1.4 trillion and at least $500 billion in the United States in the next decade; Saudi Arabia promised to invest $600 billion in the United States in the next four years.
That is, Middle Eastern countries obtain US technological support through their investment in the United States, which is an exchange. The United States, on the one hand, obtains funds from the Middle East, and on the other hand, can hinder the expansion of China's influence in the Middle East. Behind the rapid development of the Middle East, China and the United States are both making money and competing here.
But precisely because of this competition, the Middle East has become the most special place in the world - the middle ground between China and the United States.
The Middle Ground
As the intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa and the link between the East and the West, the Middle East