(Reuters) -The United States has approved several billion dollars worth of Nvidia chip exports to the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security recently issued the Nvidia export licenses under the terms of a bilateral artificial intelligence agreement hashed out in May, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The deal would boost UAE’s construction of data centers vital to developing AI models.
The approval came after the UAE made concrete plans for a reciprocal amount of investment on American soil, the report said.
Nvidia declined to comment on the report.
“The Commerce Department is fully committed to the transformational U.S.-UAE AI partnership deal,” a spokesperson for the government told Bloomberg.
The White House and the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comments, while representatives for the UAE could not be immediately reached.
The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the Emirates’ to allow it to import 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips per year, starting in 2025, Reuters reported in May. The agreement was at least through 2027, but there was a chance it could be in place until 2030.
U.S. President Donald Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key goal of his administration.
Trump in May, while on a tour of the Gulf region, announced $600 billion worth of commitments from Saudi Arabia, including deals to buy large quantities of chips from Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Qualcomm.
(Reporting by Yazhini M V in Bengaluru; Additional reported by Mrinmay Dey; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Ronojoy Mazumdar)
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