Agreements span government, energy, and investment sectors as the emirate accelerates plans to become the world’s first fully AI-native government.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, met with OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman to advance strategic cooperation in artificial intelligence and witnessed the signing of four major agreements across the government, energy, and investment sectors.
The discussions addressed the deployment of advanced AI technologies to accelerate public sector transformation and spur innovation across priority economic areas. The talks highlighted Abu Dhabi’s ongoing efforts to integrate AI into government administration and commercial industries, backed by sustained capital investments in local digital infrastructure and domestic workforce development.
Following the bilateral meeting, four separate agreements were finalised between Abu Dhabi entities and OpenAI. The partnerships form part of the emirate’s broader strategy to position itself as an international center for AI innovation and transition from pilot adoption to large-scale operational deployment.
In the energy sector, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), artificial intelligence group G42—acting through its subsidiary Inception42—and OpenAI entered into an agreement establishing ADNOC as the first energy firm to deploy OpenAI’s frontier technology. The collaboration will incorporate OpenAI’s GPT models into ADNOC’s daily operations via domestic inference infrastructure within the UAE, streamlining operational, commercial, and capital allocation decisions to lift productivity.
Within the public sector, the Abu Dhabi Government and OpenAI unveiled the Machine-Readable Government (MRG) initiative, designed to support the emirate’s target of establishing a fully AI-native administration. Governed by the Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi (DGE), the program converts designated regulatory frameworks and policies into machine-readable code. The automated framework assists public officials in evaluating regulatory compliance for permits and certifications, ensuring every output directly traces back to statutory rules while officials retain final administrative authority. The initial live pilot is operating within the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA) to oversee food import compliance, utilizing graphics processing units (GPUs) based inside UAE data centers for real-time model computation.
In the investment domain, sovereign investor Mubadala, Inception42, and OpenAI agreed to deploy frontier AI models to evaluate market opportunities, conduct quantitative investment analyses, and strengthen portfolio risk assessments.
Separately, Inception42 and OpenAI signed a five-year commercial partnership to facilitate frontier AI implementation across UAE public bodies, private enterprises, and academic institutions. The arrangement combines OpenAI’s foundational models and technical engineering with Inception42’s applied AI systems and advisory services.
“Abu Dhabi and the UAE are setting a bold, global standard for AI integration across both the public and private sectors to make sure the benefits of AI reach everyone,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “We are proud to support the UAE’s ambition, anchored in a shared commitment to safety, accessibility and responsible innovation.”
