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Nvidia’s graphics processing units are in high demand.

According to a Financial Times report, citing unnamed sources, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two countries that aim to become leaders in AI, are buying “thousands of its chips” to build artificial intelligence (AI) software.  

Saudi Arabia has reportedly bought at least 3000 of Nvidia’s H100 chips, which cost $40,000 each. The public research institution King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) plans to build the supercomputer Shaheen III, which 700 H100 chips will power. The supercomputer is expected to be operational this year. The institute will also use the H100 chips to build its large language model, similar to OpenAI’s GPT-4.

Meanwhile, the UAE has secured thousands of Nvidia chips to develop its open-source language model Falcon at the state-owned Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi. Now freely available online, the Falcon model was trained on 384 Nvidia A100 chips and can generate realistic images, text, and code.

The UAE, the first country to establish a Ministry of Artificial Intelligence in 2017, has launched a Generative AI Guide as part of its commitment to becoming a global leader in the technology and AI sectors. 

During his Abu Dhabi visit in June, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman praised UAE’s foresight in recognizing the importance of AI. He said the Gulf region could “play a central role in this global conversation” around emerging technology and its regulation. “There has been discussion about AI, here in particular, in Abu Dhabi, before it was cool,” he said.