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In another big development this predominantly AI-themed week, G42 and MGX are both working on separate projects to boost AI infrastructure — with MGX backing a massive USD 30 bn AI infrastructure fund, and G42 setting up two research centers in Abu Dhabi alongside Microsoft.
#1- Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX will back a new USD 30 bn AI infrastructure fund launched by BlackRock and Global Infrastructure Partners as a general partner, alongside Microsoft, according to a statement. Chipmaker Nvidia is also on board to provide its expertise, it added. The fund will be known as the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership
The details: The fund will aim to invest in data centers and energy projects to power them, primarily in the US, alongside others in “US partner countries,” the statement said, without clarifying a timeline for investments. The fund will also aim to mobilize some USD 70 bn in debt financing by bringing on additional investors and pensions, according to the statement.
A multi-tn USD industry? “The need to build out data centers globally is multi-tns of dollars to finance,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told Bloomberg, “This is just a great example of the capital markets building out infrastructure and building out the opportunities and new technologies.”
Background: MGX — which was set up earlier this year by wealth fund Mubadala and G42 — is gunning for some USD 100 bn in AUM under MGX as it makes big regional and world-scale investments in AI and semiconductors. The company kicked off the month with a board meeting that signaled “significant steps” coming to establish itself as a premier AI investor. The fund is also rumored to be interested in backing ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s upcoming multi-bn USD funding round.
#2- G42 and Microsoft will set up two AI centers in Abu Dhabi focused on boosting access to AI for the Middle East and Global South, according to a press release. The first center, co-founded with the UAE’s Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council (AIATC), will work on setting standards for ethical AI practices across the two regions, while the second — Microsoft’s AI for Good Research Lap — will focus on creating large models for underserved languages and addressing challenges in food security and climate resilience.
More assurances US tech is secure in the UAE: G42 will adopt a “red teaming” approach to test AI systems against cyberattacks, the statement reads.
REMEMBER: The IHC-backed company started receiving AI chips from US chipmaker Nvidia after the US government approved the sale earlier this year without making the transaction public. This came under Microsoft’s USD 1.5 bn investment in April in G42, for which the state-owned AI firm had offloaded all its stakes in Chinese businesses in a bid to reportedly appease US partners.
