UAE National Security Advisor, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House on March 18, 2025.
As artificial intelligence startups raise increasingly large sums of cash to fund their swelling infrastructure needs, they're turning to strategic partners like Nvidia and big venture firms such as Thrive Capital, Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz.
But one major financier has a name that's less familiar in the world of tech investing: MGX.
Backed by Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund and launched in March 2024, MGX has emerged as a key source of capital as hyperscalers Microsoft , Meta and Google , and startups like OpenAI race to build out the enormous computing power needed to meet expected AI demand.
In September, MGX made another big splash, joining Oracle and Silver Lake in President Donald Trump's push to get TikTok under U.S. control.
And on Wednesday, MGX was back in the news as part of another giant AI deal. MGX is joining investors including Nvidia, Microsoft, BlackRock and Elon Musk's xAI in purchasing Aligned Data Centers for $40 billion, the largest global data center deal to date. Aligned designs and operates facilities across North and South America.
MGX was formed out of a joint venture between Group 42 (G42), a tech holding company based in the United Arab Emirates, and Mubadala Investment Company. Despite the geopolitical concerns that come with bringing vast amounts of Middle Eastern money into critical U.S. infrastructure, tech companies are welcoming MGX and its deep pockets into the fold.
MGX's first major announcement in the U.S. landed in the fall of 2024, not quite two years after OpenAI's ChatGPT set the generative AI boom in motion.
In its initial deal, MGX joined a consortium — now called AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) — formed by firms including BlackRock and Microsoft, to spend $100 billion on AI infrastructure, primarily in the U.S. Separately, Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in G42 to develop AI technologies in the Middle East, with G42 using Microsoft's Azure cloud service to power it all.
The AIP consortium is also MGX's avenue into the latest deal for Aligned.