{"id":212891,"date":"2025-10-14T18:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/212891\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T18:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:01:08","slug":"canada-signs-non-binding-artificial-intelligence-deal-with-united-arab-emirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/212891\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada signs non-binding artificial intelligence deal with United Arab Emirates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon in September. Mr. Solomon signed a memorandum of understanding with the UAE on Monday about artificial intelligence investments, particularly data centre opportunities.Christopher Katsarov\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Ottawa has signed a non-binding deal with the United Arab Emirates to explore investment opportunities related to artificial intelligence<\/a>, with an eye to attracting capital from the Middle Eastern country to build data centres in Canada.<\/p>\n

Federal AI Minister Evan Solomon signed the memorandum of understanding Tuesday in Abu Dhabi with the UAE\u2019s Minister of Investment, Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe framework is to make sure that we get more Canadian companies opening offices here,\u201d Mr. Solomon said in an interview, \u201cbut also to make sure that the UAE invests in Canada on an infrastructure level.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a push for Canada to diversify trade given the tense relationship with the United States, and the courting of the UAE has been underway for months. Mr. Solomon met with a delegation from the UAE in Ottawa in June<\/a>, and representatives from the country were prominently featured at the All In conference, a large AI event, last month in Montreal. <\/p>\n

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On stage, chief of government services Mohamed Bin Taliah described how the country uses AI in the public sector to improve efficiency and has also deployed a digital identity system for citizens to access government services from a single app, which uses facial recognition for authentication.<\/p>\n

In the past few years, the UAE has emerged as a player in AI. The country appointed its first minister of AI in 2017 and its sovereign wealth funds have billions of dollars to spend on the expensive, energy-hungry infrastructure that powers AI models and applications. <\/p>\n

OpenAI partnered with Emirati cloud company G42 to build a data centre in Abu Dhabi<\/a> that will switch online next year. G42 has also announced plans to open a subsidiary in London<\/a> to work with the public and private sectors in Europe.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Emirati fund MGX partnered with Nvidia Corp. in May to build what they have called Europe\u2019s largest data centre campus in France. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said this year the UAE will invest US$40-billion in Italy, including for AI, data centres, renewable energy and rare earths.<\/p>\n

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Mr. Solomon mentioned MGX, G42 and sovereign wealth funds Mubadala and ADQ as interested in making investments in Canada or co-investing with others. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re interested in partnering with a country that\u2019s got incredible access to energy, and they see this as a stable, trustworthy, well-positioned country,\u201d he said. (Mr. Alsuwaidi, the minister of investment, is also the chief executive officer of ADQ.)<\/p>\n

With these investments comes more political influence for the UAE. Officials in the U.S. have also raised security concerns<\/a> with G42, including the possibility that American technology and data could be transferred to China, owing to the UAE\u2019s ties with that country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re aware of all those questions and all those issues. Our eyes are wide open,\u201d Mr. Solomon said. <\/p>\n

Some Canadian companies are making headway in the region. Toronto-based AI company Cohere is already working with STC Group, a telecommunications company in Saudi Arabia. Venture investment firm Inovia Capital co-lead a delegation<\/a> of tech executives to Abu Dhabi and Dubai recently, including Cohere co-founder Nick Frosst.<\/p>\n

Mr. Solomon said the UAE is looking at investments beyond AI too, pointing to life sciences, agriculture and fintech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon in September. Mr. Solomon signed a memorandum of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,1398,61],"class_list":["post-212891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nodelphi","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}