G42 (Group 42) is an Emirati artificial intelligence and cloud-computing holding company based in Abu Dhabi and founded in 2018. It operates across digital infrastructure and cloud, AI security, high-impact industry solutions, and investments, and describes its core ambition as building an “Intelligence Grid” of interconnected AI infrastructure for governments, businesses, and individuals.
The company became a focal point of the geopolitics of AI when Microsoft took a 1.5 billion dollar stake in 2024 as part of an arrangement that also saw G42 reduce its ties to Chinese technology suppliers, reflecting US concern about advanced AI hardware flowing through the Gulf. Its backers include the Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala, Silver Lake, Microsoft, and the Dalio Family Office.
Why a business reader should care: G42 is the clearest case of a national champion built deliberately to give a small, wealthy state a seat at the AI table, and the conditions attached to Western investment in it show how chip-export politics now shape corporate strategy far beyond Silicon Valley.