The UAE’s €40 billion commitment to Germany is about more than another overseas investment. Buried inside the package is up to 1 GW of data-centre capacity, a figure that puts the deal squarely in the infrastructure business. Abu Dhabi is increasingly putting its capital where the physical foundations of the AI economy are being built, including outside the Gulf.

The Gulf has never lacked the money to build an AI industry. The harder question is what money cannot buy: unrestricted access to chips, technology and the infrastructure that keeps it all running. As Abu Dhabi and Riyadh push deeper into AI, sovereignty is becoming less about owning everything and more about controlling what matters.