As the US bids to “win the AI race” (as the White House puts it), Gulf states are betting that if they become critical partners to the likes of Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, Washington will back their security too. In the words of Steven A. Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, “AI is the mother of all insurance policies,” a geopolitical calculation that adds to the economic diversification goal usually cited for the multibillion-dollar technology investments by Abu Dhabi, Doha, and Riyadh.
As the Gulf waits for President Donald Trump’s next move on Iran, amid a prodigious buildup of US forces in the region, the argument for AI-as-protection is an untested one. Qatar locked in a non-binding security guarantee from the US after Iran struck Doha last June, and Saudi Arabia also secured a strategic defense agreement with the White House last year, but those deals arguably came as a result of old-fashioned diplomatic lobbying rather than investment pledges. But perhaps it’s still too early in the race.