UAE To Launch Nationwide ChatGPT Access With OpenAI

Residents across the United Arab Emirates are set to gain access to ChatGPT Plus, the premium version of OpenAI's advanced chatbot, following a significant partnership agreement between the artificial intelligence company and the UAE government. OpenAI announced this landmark deal in May, clarifying that the agreement facilitates nationwide access to the technology, rather than providing free personal subscriptions to users.

Currently, the free version of ChatGPT is not accessible in the UAE, and the ChatGPT Plus service typically costs $20 per month.

"Under the partnership, the UAE will become the first country in the world to enable ChatGPT nationwide—giving people across the country the ability to access OpenAI's technology," stated OpenAI. The company further elaborated, "The new partnership will support the UAE in leveraging OpenAI’s tools across critical sectors like government, energy, healthcare, education, and transportation to help accelerate innovation and economic growth while creating lasting benefits for its people."

This development follows the UAE's substantial commitment to invest $1.4 trillion in the US. This investment aims to support job creation, foster economic growth, and assist the US in maintaining its leadership in technology.

The Stargate UAE Initiative

The ambitious project will be managed through Stargate UAE, marking the first international deployment of Stargate, OpenAI's sophisticated infrastructure platform. "Stargate represents our long-term vision for building frontier-scale compute capacity around the world in service of safe, secure, and broadly beneficial [artificial general intelligence]," OpenAI explained.

The Stargate UAE initiative involves the construction of a 1-gigawatt artificial intelligence computing cluster in Abu Dhabi. This will be a collaborative effort with several leading technology companies, including G42, Oracle, NVIDIA, and Cisco. The initial phase of this project is expected to generate approximately 200 megawatts of power by 2026.

Fostering Global AI Development Aligned with US Interests

OpenAI expressed hopes that this partnership will serve as a model, encouraging other nations to forge similar agreements under its "OpenAI for Countries" initiative. OpenAI's Chief Strategy Officer, Jason Kwon, is currently leading a roadshow across the Asia Pacific region to promote this initiative.

"We aim to pursue 10 partnerships across key countries and regions—laying the foundation for a globally distributed, democratically powered AI network," the company's statement detailed.

The initiative is designed to "help interested governments build sovereign AI capability in coordination with the US government." OpenAI emphasized its "commitment to strengthening US infrastructure while helping allies gain access to transformative AI responsibly and securely."