Watchdog tells Qatar to do more to combat financial crime
27 February 2023The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has said Qatar needs to do more to prevent financial crimes and money laundering.
“Qatar needs to make important improvements in certain areas, including in its law enforcement response to money laundering and terrorism financing in particular and its use of financial intelligence,” the FAFT said in a statement on 24 February.
“Qatar should also improve the availability and access to beneficial ownership information by law enforcement and competent authorities and strengthen the implementation of targeted financial sanctions for proliferation financing.”
The FAFT also said that Qatar has made a range of improvements to its anti-money laundering (AML)/combating the finance of terrorism (CFT) regime in recent years. It plans to publish a report on Qatar by May after it completes its quality and consistency review.
In March 2022, the FAFT put the UAE under increased monitoring, known externally as its grey list.
“Jurisdictions under increased monitoring are actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing,” the FATF said at the time.
Since then, the UAE has made some high-profile arrests. In June last year, the Dubai Media Office confirmed that Dubai Police had arrested Atul and Rajesh Gupta, both wanted by the authorities in South Africa on criminal and money laundering charges.
The Gupta arrests came four days after the detention on 3 June of Sanjay Shah, a suspect in a DKK12bn ($1.7bn) dividend-tax fraud case in Denmark.
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Oman awards $670m Adam-Thumrait road contracts
15 May 2025
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US and Qatar sign wide-reaching strategic deals
15 May 2025
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US and UAE agree 5GW artificial inteligence campus Jennifer Aguinaldo
16 May 2025
The UAE and the US governments have agreed to partner in building a new 5GW artificial intelligence (AI) campus.
The agreement is part of over $200bn worth of deals announced during the state visit of US President Donald Trump to the UAE, the final stop of his four-day Gulf visit, which began in Riyadh on 13 May.
The project's first phase entails a 1GW data centre, but the planned 5GW campus will be the largest outside the US once complete, the US State Department said.
"The UAE-US AI campus will include 5GW of capacity for AI data centers in Abu Dhabi, providing a regional platform from which US hyperscalers will be able to offer latency-friendly services to nearly half of the global population living within 3,200 kilometres of the UAE," the department said.
"Once completed, the facility will leverage nuclear, solar and gas power to minimise carbon emissions and will also house a science park driving advancements in AI innovation."
The campus within Abu Dhabi will span 10 square miles, roughly 26 square kilometres. It will be built by UAE-based AI firm G42 and operated in partnership with several US companies.
The endeavour builds on a new framework by the US and UAE governments, known US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership, to deepen cooperation and collaboration on AI and advanced technologies.
Within 30 days of the agreement, the UAE and the US will establish a working group to implement, monitor and assess progress, the US State Department added.
The White House or State Department statements did not indicate which chips from US tech firm Nvidia or other US-based manufacturers will be deployed for the planned 5GW campus.
Related read: PIF’s Humain and US chipmakers seal multibillion-dollar deals
However, previous reports by Reuters and other media outlets indicated a pending deal that will allow the UAE to import as many as 500,000 Nvidia advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) annually starting this year.
The deal addresses fears that US export controls on advanced US-made GPUs could stifle the UAE's ambitious AI strategy.
The White House said that the AI agreement "includes the UAE committing to invest in, build, or finance US data centers that are at least as large and as powerful as those in the UAE."
"The agreement also contains historic commitments by the UAE to further align their national security regulations with the United States, including strong protections to prevent the diversion of U.S.-origin technology."
The other deals that were announced as part of the overall $200bn agreements include a $14.5bn commitment from Abu Dhabi-based state carrier Etihad Airways to invest in 28 Boeing 787 and 777x aircraft powered by GE Aerospace.
The estimated $200bn new US-UAE trade deals accelerate the UAE's previous commitment to invest up to $1.4tn in the US over 10 years.
Abu Dhabi-headquartered Emirates Global Aluminium plans to invest in developing a $4bn primary aluminum smelter project in Oklahoma, while US energy firms ExxonMobil Corp, Occidental Petroleum, and EOG Resources were partnering with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in expanded oil and natural gas production valued at $60bn.
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PIF’s Humain and US chipmakers seal multibillion-dollar deals Jennifer Aguinaldo
15 May 2025
Humain, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF)-owned artificial intelligence (AI) firm, has signed preliminary deals with US chipmakers AMD and Nvidia to build a multibillion-dollar advanced digital infrastructure in the kingdom.
The firms announced the deals on 13 May, coinciding with the first day of US President Donald Trump’s trip to the Gulf states.
AMD said it will invest up to $10bn to deploy 500MW of AI compute capacity in Saudi Arabia over the next five years.
According to AMD, the project entails building “the world’s most open, scalable, resilient and cost-efficient AI infrastructure, that will power the future of global intelligence through a network of AMD-based AI computing centres stretching from Saudi Arabia to the US”.
It added: “The AI superstructure built by AMD and Humain will be open by design, accessible at scale and optimised to power AI workloads across enterprise, start-up and sovereign markets.
“Humain will oversee end-to-end delivery, including [the construction of a] hyperscale data centre, sustainable power systems and global fiber interconnects, and AMD will provide the full spectrum of the AMD AI compute portfolio and the AMD ROCm open software ecosystem.”
The ROCm is an open software stack comprising drivers, development tools and application programming interfaces that enable graphic processing unit (GPU) programming from low-level kernel to end-user applications, according to AMD.
Similarly, GPU maker Nvidia agreed to develop a similar compute capacity to build “AI factories” in Saudi Arabia with a projected capacity of up to 500MW.
These will require “several hundred thousand” of Nvidia’s most advanced GPUs over the next five years.
The firm said the first phase of deployment will be an 18,000 Nvidia GB300 Grace Blackwell AI supercomputer with Nvidia InfiniBand networking.
“These hyperscale AI data centres will provide a secure foundational infrastructure for training and deploying sovereign AI models at scale, enabling industries across Saudi Arabia and worldwide to accelerate innovation and digital transformation,” the firm said.
The chosen platform is Nvidia Omniverse, which the firm describes as “a multi-tenant system to drive acceleration of the new era of physical AI and robotics through simulation, optimisation and operation of physical environments by new human-AI-led solutions”.
This will allow industries such as manufacturing, logistics and energy to create fully integrated digital twins, boosting efficiency, safety and sustainability while fast-tracking the kingdom’s journey toward Industry 4.0, it added.
The UAE and Nvidia, in particular, are expected to announce a deal over the next 24 hours for the supply of up to 1 million GPUs to the UAE, international media reports indicate.
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Oman awards $670m Adam-Thumrait road contracts Yasir Iqbal
15 May 2025
Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications & Information Technology has awarded three contracts totalling over RO258m ($670m) for packages three, four and five of the Adam-Thumrait road dualisation project.
The contracts were awarded to joint ventures of local and Saudi-based firms.
The first contract covering the construction works on package three was awarded to a joint venture of local firm Sarooj Construction Company and Saudi Arabia’s Rawaf Contracting Company.
Package three covers a 132.5 kilometre-long stretch of highway connecting Haima with Maqshan. It includes the construction of roads with 16 detour lanes, an intersection for Maqshan and 19 side parking slots.
The second contract, covering package four, was awarded to Oman’s Galfar Engineering & Contracting and Saudi Arabia’s Alomaier Trading & Contracting Company.
Package four is 135km long and connects Maqshan to Dokah. The scope includes the construction of roads with 14 detour lanes and 27 side parking lots.
The third contract, covering the construction of package five, was awarded to the joint venture of Oman Gulf Company and Saudi Arabia’s Kom Al-Fahd Trading, Industry & Contracting Company.
وقعت الوزارة اليوم بإتلاف عُماني سعودي على 3 اتفاقيات لتنفيذ الأجزاء (الثالث والرابع والخامس) من ازدواجية طريق السلطان سعيد بن تيمور بطول إجمالي 400 كم
جاء ذلك في إطار جهود وزارة النقل والاتصالات وتقنية المعلومات المستمرة لتعزيز جودة وكفاءة البنية الأساسية للطرق
pic.twitter.com/iHPf7VZrRb
— وزارة النقل والاتصالات وتقنية المعلومات (@mtcitoman) May 13, 2025
In September last year, MEED reported that Oman’s Transport, Communications & Information Technology Ministry had opened bids for packages three, four and five of the Adam-Thumrait road dualisation project.
US-based Parsons is the consultant for the Adam-Thumrait road expansion project.
The ministry reissued the tender for the contracts on 22 June last year. The tender was open exclusively for Saudi-Omani joint ventures.
The contracts were first tendered in 2019 and later cancelled.
The project links Muscat and Salalah via a fully dualised road. It will also upgrade the existing single carriageway between Adam and Thumrait to a four-lane carriageway.
The 717.5km-long highway project is divided into five packages.
Packages one and two were completed in 2019. UAE-based Ghantoot Transport & General Contracting Company was the contractor for package one. Lebanon-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) was the contractor for package two.
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US and Qatar sign wide-reaching strategic deals John Bambridge
15 May 2025
During US President Donald Trump’s trip to Doha, the US and Qatar signed a series of high-value agreements spanning aviation, defence and other technologies, deepening economic and strategic ties between the two nations.
Headlining the visit was a landmark aircraft order by Qatar Airways for up to 210 Boeing aircraft – including the 787 Dreamliner and the 777X models – to be delivered over the next seven years.
Qatar Airways group CEO Badr Mohammed Al-Meer hailed the deal as a “critical next step” for the airline, praising its existing Boeing fleet and stating that the new order would deliver the “cleanest, youngest and most efficient fleet in global aviation”.
The White House valued the deal at approximately $96bn, though Trump quoted figures as high as $200bn during the announcement. Either way, it marks the single largest order for Boeing’s 787 series to date and will provide much-needed support for the US firm’s ailing share price.
In addition to the Boeing deal, US and Qatari officials finalised a variety of defence contracts with US firms, including a $2bn deal with General Atomics for unmanned aerial vehicles and a $1bn deal with Raytheon for its latest counter-drone technology – making Qatar its first international buyer.
The US meanwhile signed a statement of intent for potentially $38bn in future investments in the air defence, maritime security and other support infrastructure for the US’ Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
A series of technology partnership agreements were also signed, including a $1bn Qatari joint venture with US firms in the emerging field of quantum technologies.
The cumulative value of these and related deals is projected to exceed $1.2tn, reflecting a broader and long-term economic engagement between the two countries, though it remains unclear where the full measure of this figure is expected to come from.
The expansive new deals will build on already-strong existing US-Qatar economic ties, including Qatari investments in US energy projects and ongoing military sales valued at over $26bn.
There is also the possibility of Qatar gifting the US a $400m luxury Boeing 747-8 for use by Trump during his presidency as a replacement for the Air Force One fleet’s ageing 747-200Bs – a model that first entered service in 1971 – though the proposition has met with US political resistance.
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Saudi Arabia prepares to tender 9GW of thermal capacity Jennifer Aguinaldo
15 May 2025
Saudi Arabia’s main utility firm, Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), and the principal buyer, Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC), plan to tender the contracts to build and develop, respectively, combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power generation plants before the end of the year.
According to industry sources, SEC is expected to invite engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors to bid for a CCGT power generation plant in Shoaibah, while SPPC could start prequalifying bidders for a gas-fired independent power plant (IPP) located in Shuqaiq or Dawadmi.
One of the sources said the total capacity being considered is 9GW.
It is unclear if the SPPC will split the Dawadmi IPP into two contracts, similar to the four IPP schemes it awarded in 2023 and 2024, where each scheme was divided into two packages.
The project is part of the massive capacity buildout in Saudi Arabia as the kingdom implements its liquid fuel displacement programme by 2030 and aims for renewable energy to account for 50% of its total installed generation capacity by the end of the decade.
The SPPC awarded eight gas-fired IPP contracts with a total capacity of 14.4GW between 2023 and 2024.
SEC last year and during the first several months of this year awarded the contracts or issued the limited notices to proceed for six CCGT projects with a total combined capacity of nearly 14GW, exclusive of the 1.2GW Rabigh power plant project awarded in 2023 to a team led by Saudi utility developer Acwa Power.
These contracts bring the total capacity of under-construction gas-fired power generation plants in Saudi Arabia to roughly 30GW, including the 475MW cogeneration plant in Marjan.
Solar and wind projects with a total capacity of around 16.4GW are also under construction in the kingdom.
In its 2024 earnings report, SEC said the kingdom’s generation capacity connected to the grid reached 92.15GW in 2024, up 6.9% over 2023, when installed capacity stood at 86.23GW.
The firm also said it aims to expand its power transmission network to approximately 160,000 kilometres by 2030, up 60% over its existing network of about 99,800km.
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