South Korea and UAE Partner on Stargate AI Project

South Korea and the United Arab Emirates signed a strategic framework agreement on Tuesday to cooperate on the U.S.-backed Stargate project. The initiative aims to establish a massive artificial intelligence data campus in the UAE, intended to be the largest set of AI data centers outside the United States.

Following a summit between South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, South Korea agreed to provide support for computing power and energy infrastructure. This includes a power grid utilizing gas, renewable energy, and nuclear power.

U.S. President Donald Trump brokered the deal, removing previous U.S. restrictions on transferring advanced technology to the UAE that had been in place due to the country's relations with China. The first phase of the project, requiring 1 gigawatt of power, is led by the state-backed UAE firm G42 in partnership with Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, Cisco Systems, and SoftBank Group.