US clears AI chip exports to UAE
The UAE moved to Country Group A:5 on July 10. G42, Core42, and eight named US companies can now ship advanced AI chips and servers without individual licenses.
The US Department of Commerce reclassified the United Arab Emirates on July 10, moving it from export control groups D:3 and D:4 to Country Group A:5, the same tier reserved for close US allies. The change takes effect immediately and removes the requirement for individual export licenses on advanced AI chips, servers, commercial satellites, and dual-use computing equipment shipped to approved UAE entities.
Approved entities include G42 and Core42 on the UAE side, and Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI on the US side. Any of those parties can now import or export high-performance AI hardware (Nvidia H100s, H200s, AMD Instinct accelerators, associated server systems) without going through the case-by-case license process that previously added weeks or months of lead time.
What changed
Until July 10, the UAE sat in the D country groups, which apply to countries with mixed US relationships. That grouping required exporters to apply for individual licenses before shipping restricted compute to UAE customers. Each application triggered a national-security review. The review process had no fixed timeline, making large-scale hardware commitments difficult to plan around.
Country Group A:5 aligns the UAE with the Strategic Trade Authorization exception, which allows a broad set of exports to proceed under general authorization rather than individual review. The practical result is that any approved entity can order and receive US AI compute through normal commercial channels.
Why it matters for builders
If you or your clients are building AI infrastructure in the Gulf, a region increasingly treated as a sovereign AI buildout zone rather than just a market, the hardware supply constraint just changed. The G42 and Core42 approvals cover the two largest UAE hyperscale players. The named US companies already operate UAE data centers or have announced plans to do so. Procurement timelines and contractual commitments that previously required license contingency clauses can now be simplified.
The reclassification also signals the administration’s view of the UAE AI cooperation framework signed in May 2025 as active and binding, not just aspirational. Future hardware availability in the region will depend less on Washington approval cycles and more on factory output and logistics.
For context on how hardware access affects AI deployment decisions, see what the AI chip race means for you and AI vendor lock-in exit ramps.