Stargate UAE launches: OpenAI’s first international Stargate cluster planned for Abu Dhabi’s AI campus

[Founding Archive] AI20 editorial coverage based on OpenAI (2025-05-22). On 22 May 2025, OpenAI announced Stargate UAE as the first international deployment of its Stargate AI infrastructure platform and the first partnership under its OpenAI for Countries initiative. OpenAI describes a 1 GW Stargate UAE cluster in Abu Dhabi, with 200 MW expected to go live in 2026, developed in the context of the U.S.–UAE AI Acceleration Partnership. Complementary announcements from Abu Dhabi’s media office and partners identify a collaboration including G42, OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA, SoftBank Group and Cisco to build the cluster within a newly established multi-gigawatt UAE–U.S. AI Campus, with NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GB300 systems planned for the facility. OpenAI frames the project as helping the UAE apply AI across government, energy, healthcare, education and transportation while expanding trusted compute capacity with reach across a wide regional radius. For the alliance, Stargate UAE is a flagship example of sovereign-scale infrastructure built through cross-border industrial partnership. Why it matters: Compute geography is strategy. Where frontier clusters are built — and under which trust and export frameworks — will shape latency, residency, partnership eligibility and the distribution of AI economic rents for the next decade. AI20 perspective: International compute alliances only endure if safety, security and broad benefit travel with the megawatts. Stargate-style projects should be evaluated not only on capacity milestones, but on whether they widen responsible access for researchers, public services and regional innovators. (Category: Infrastructure; Region: United Arab Emirates / Middle East; Tags: Stargate; OpenAI; G42; Oracle; NVIDIA; sovereign compute; OpenAI for Countries. Original source: https://openai.com/index/introducing-stargate-uae/)