Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, speaks during the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, October 31, 2025.
Microsoft said Monday it has secured export licenses to ship Nvidia chips to the United Arab Emirates in a move that could accelerate the Gulf's lofty AI ambitions.
The tech giant said it is the first company under U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to secure such licenses from the Commerce Department and that the approval, granted in September, was based on "updated and stringent technology safeguards."
The licenses enable the firm to ship the equivalent of 60,400 additional A100 chips, involving tech darling Nvidia's more advanced GB300 GPUs.
"While the chips are powerful and the numbers are large, more important is their positive impact across the UAE," Microsoft said in a blog post. "We're using these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source providers, and Microsoft itself."
Nvidia shares climbed 3% Monday. Microsoft stock rose slightly.
Azad Zangana, head of GCC macroeconomic analysis at Oxford Economics, said in a note that Nvidia's chips are "crucial" for the UAE's push to be a major global player in AI.
"Access to the world's leading AI chips provides the hardware that will give developers the leading edge that is needed in an incredibly competitive global landscape," Zangana wrote.