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Qatari telecoms provider Ooredoo told CNBC on Wednesday that it and Nvidia Complies with all US regulations and will still allow access to the latest technology.
Ooredoo earlier this week partnered with Nvidia, marking the chipmaker’s first large-scale entry into the Middle East market. The companies did not disclose the value of the deal.
Under the deal, thousands of Nvidia’s GPUs (graphics processing units) will be deployed in 26 data centers in Qatar and five other countries: Kuwait, Oman, Algeria, Tunisia and the Maldives. These chips will help data centers process the vast amounts of information that will feed artificial intelligence chatbots and other tools that are an important part of the nation’s artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The collaboration comes after the United States last year restricted the sale of certain advanced chips to some Middle Eastern countries over concerns the technology could be intercepted by China.
Washington does allow the export of some Nvidia chips to the region, and Nvidia, AMD and Intel Both said they plan to produce less powerful chips for export to the Chinese market. These restrictions are primarily for the A100 and H100 chips, not the GPUs (another type of semiconductor) at the heart of this deal.
Ooredoo told CNBC the deal complies with all U.S. regulations. Under the partnership, no new licenses were created for different wafers.
Ooredoo CEO told CNBC: “As a telecom operator, it is normal to deal with very strict regulations. We are used to dealing with regulators and government agencies, whether they are local or international.”
“We are working closely with the various regulatory agencies and Nvidia to obtain all necessary approvals and provide all the assurances required,” he added.
China and the United States are engaged in a tug-of-war over acquiring and protecting the latest artificial intelligence technology. The UAE’s top artificial intelligence group G42 vows to phase out Chinese hardware to appease Washington. A $1.5 billion deal was later struck with Microsoft.
The Gulf states are using their vast energy wealth to try to become pioneers in artificial intelligence, investing in developing the technology and importing large quantities of chips used in AI data centers.
The Ooredoo CEO said these chips are the latest generation of GPUs specifically targeted at artificial intelligence and “will be able to deliver these artificial intelligence models and the extreme machine learning and model utilization that generates artificial intelligence.”
They will be used for government citizen services and to increase productivity and efficiency of general companies and R&D.
Cloud partnerships The partnership between Ooredoo and Nvidia aims to position the chip maker as a central source of artificial intelligence technology in the region, which Ooredoo says will drive innovation, growth and create jobs. These countries will be able to use Nvidia’s latest full-end artificial intelligence platform to serve Ooredoo and non-Ooredoo customers through independent data centers.
Prior to announcing its partnership with Nvidia, Ooredoo also committed to investing $1 billion to increase its regional data center capacity. Ooredoo CEO Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo told CNBC’s Dan Murphy that he expects the investment to pay off in the coming years.
“The demand we’re seeing from the cloud, adding the AI layer now is beyond our most optimistic plans, so we’ll probably outpace that investment in the next three to five years.”
Qatar Investment Authority-backed Ooredoo, which is listed in both Qatar and Abu Dhabi, plans to develop a platform powered by artificial intelligence and powered by Nvidia, hoping to meet market demand.
Last week, Nvidia briefly became the world’s most valuable company, surpassing Microsoft. The chipmaker rebounded in Tuesday trading, reversing a three-day losing streak that had wiped more than $550 billion off its market value.
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