OpenAI for Countries
When AI Infrastructure Becomes Foreign Policy
The launch of Stargate UAE marks more than an expansion of AI infrastructure—it signals a realignment in how national power is constructed, coordinated, and contested in the age of frontier AI. I held back on LinkedIn. Here, I unpack what this might actually mean for the future of AI competition—and who shapes it.
What’s happening
OpenAI, in coordination with the U.S. government, is deploying its first international Stargate—a high-capacity compute hub for running advanced AI models—in Abu Dhabi. This is the first project under OpenAI for Countries, a new initiative to help governments build sovereign AI capabilities while remaining aligned with U.S. infrastructure, governance, and export frameworks.
The partnership includes:
A 1-gigawatt compute cluster in the UAE, with 200MW operational by 2026
Emirati investment into U.S.-based Stargate infrastructure
Nationwide ChatGPT access, integrated into government, education, healthcare, and other public systems
This isn’t just about ChatGPT. It’s about embedding AI into national systems—and deciding who builds and governs the infrastructure underneath.
Why it matters
In the 20th century, countries signaled ambition through energy programs or spaceflight. Today, it’s compute sovereignty—and OpenAI is offering a structured, U.S.-aligned path to get there. But this model isn’t open-source, neutral, or decentralized.
What we’re seeing is a new mode of AI competition, where companies like OpenAI, backed by state coordination, are becoming infrastructure partners in geopolitics—not just model providers.
This creates pressure and precedent. Private AI labs are no longer on the sidelines—they are shaping access, governance, and alliance structures.
Strategic fault lines
This development presents governments and alliances with new choices:
Align with OpenAI-style infrastructure partnerships
Build autonomous AI ecosystems from scratch
Explore open-source, Chinese, or regional models of compute and model governance
Each path will influence:
Access to frontier AI tools
Control over alignment, safety, and content governance
Interoperability across public, military, and economic systems
A globally distributed contest
OpenAI’s strategy is already expanding. After UAE, their executive team is launching a roadshow across Asia-Pacific to explore up to 10 additional Stargate partnerships—offering a full-stack AI capability aligned with U.S. strategic interests.
Stargate UAE is not the endgame—it’s the opening move in a globally distributed competition for digital infrastructure leadership.
It reframes compute as coordination.
And it turns AI capability into an instrument of geopolitical alignment.
