U.S. gains in AI race as Gulf nations ditch China for chips

The Middle East just became the newest battlefield in the U.S.-China artificial intelligence war.

The Commerce Department’s approval of 70,000 advanced AI chips to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia marks a turning point in the technology competition between the U.S. and China.

The UAE’s AI company G42 and Saudi Arabia’s Humain will each get clearance to buy semiconductors with computing power equivalent to 35,000 of Nvidia’s most powerful Blackwell GB300 processors. The…