Gulf

1. NEOM’s manufacturing hub
2. Billions in deals at FII
3. Riyadh Air buys jets
4. Doha airport’s banner quarter
5. Abu Dhabi’s data play

Remembering the UAE’s original oil expat.

Oxagon expects data center deal soon

While major questions remain about the progress of NEOM’s dual, mirrored skyscrapers for The Line, the region’s industrial zone appears to be advancing with a more practical approach. Oxagon, the site of Saudi Arabia’s $8.5 billion green hydrogen project, is in talks to host a one-gigawatt artificial intelligence data center powered by renewables and batteries, its CEO told Semafor. The first 400-megawatt phase could be signed this year, and will feature new cooling technology to reduce energy consumption.

Oxagon’s port expansion targets 1.5 million TEUs by 2026 and is already operational, accepting about 1,000 vessels this year: Saudi Arabia has allocated 15 billion riyals ($4 billion) for the port, which serves both Oxagon and The Line’s construction needs.

The city is also negotiating with renewable energy manufacturers to set up factories. Its first housing complex opens next week and by 2030, it hopes to have 25,000 people — though that’s down from initial projections of 90,000.

FII deals focus on finance, energy, tech

The Future Investment Initiative (FII) wrapped up in Riyadh with a flurry of mostly domestic deals focused on finance, tech, and aviation, and fell short of the expected $28 billion. Public Investment Fund Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan set the tone from the start that the sovereign fund is focusing on Saudi’s economic transformation, and FII deals reflected this priority.

Two notable agreements below:

• Brookfield Asset Management plans to raise at least $2 billion for a new Middle East-focused private equity fund, with Saudi Arabia’s government pension Hassana Investment Co. and the Toronto-based Brookfield each contributing up to $500 million. PIF is also considering a stake.
• PIF and Google Cloud plan to build an AI hub near Dammam in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia’s oil hub. The two will work together to advance the Arabic-language capabilities of Gemini, Google’s generative AI model. The proposed AI hub could add $71 billion to Saudi’s GDP over eight years, according to a study commissioned by Google Cloud.

Riyadh Air taps Airbus for fleet

Riyadh Air is clearing for takeoff with a multibillion-dollar deal for Airbus aircraft. The built-from-scratch premium airline — expected to begin service in the second half of 2025 — signed with the France-based planemaker for 60 narrowbody jets, bringing its tally to 132 planes on order.

Riyadh Air is on track to begin operations with three planes, gradually expanding to more than 130 by 2030 despite supply chain delays, primarily from Boeing, Chief Financial Officer Adam Boukadida told Semafor. It’s too early to announce its first destinations, he added.

The PIF-backed airline aims to help travelers circumvent a typical layover in Doha or Dubai en route to the kingdom, which anticipates an influx of tourists drawn to its expanding sports, culture, and leisure offerings.

Doha airport travel hits record high

Mega-events like the quadrennial soccer World Cup and Olympics are notorious for their white elephants. Qatar’s airport isn’t one of them. Passenger traffic through Doha’s Hamad International Airport hit a record in the third quarter and is on pace to exceed 50 million people by the end of the year, up more than 50% since the country held the 2022 World Cup. While many travelers — if not most — don’t make it past immigration, hotel occupancy rates are also up this year. Qatar Airways will start offering Starlink’s high-speed internet service on its flights next year, for free, which may differentiate the carrier from its long-haul competitors.

Microsoft, ADNOC probe AI and energy

Private investment in artificial intelligence applications for energy has declined by over 30% in the last three years, potentially setting back needed advancements in methane and carbon capture. This is according to a new report from Microsoft and Abu Dhabi energy firms ADNOC and Masdar that taps into the tension of the rise of AI: The technology’s dual role as a potential net-zero accelerator and a huge energy consumer.

“AI is an era-defining innovation that is altering the pace of change itself… But in doing so, it is also creating a power surge that nobody accounted for just 18 months ago,” Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, chairman of Masdar, and ADNOC CEO, said. Expect to see more on the intersection of AI and energy next week, as Abu Dhabi hosts the world’s largest oil and gas event, ADIPEC.

The 40,000 finance and banking jobs that London lost post Brexit? The best of them went to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the world’s most exciting financial hubs. Our friends at EnterpriseAM report every weekday morning on what drives dealflow and shapes business decisions in the UAE. Get the inside track and subscribe to EnterpriseAM here for free.

Deals

• An Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund has closed a $1 billion investment in cash-strapped Sotheby’s as Gulf cities jockey for cultural capital. ADQ will clear $800 million in debt from the auction house’s books as part of the deal and in exchange get three voting board seats.
• Qatar’s North Oil Co. awarded a unit of maritime and logistics company Qatar Navigation a $72 million contract to install a 140-km fiber cable system connecting the energy hub of Ras Laffan to the 300,000 barrel a day offshore Al Shaheen oil field. Qatar is spending $6 billion to increase the output of North Oil — a joint venture between QatarEnergy and TotalEnergies — by about 100,000 barrels a day by 2027.

Commodities

• Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., better known as Masdar, and building material company EMSTEEL completed a pilot project to produce steel using green hydrogen. Using renewable hydrogen to extract iron from iron ore can almost eliminate emissions from one of the most carbon-intensive industries.
• Dubai’s financial hub suspended two companies linked to Iranian oil kingpin Hossein Shamkhani as international regulators crack down on sanction enforcement. The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) took action against Milavous Group and Ocean Leonid Investments with both firms appearing as “inactive - suspended” in DIFC’s register. — Bloomberg

A pioneer and chronicler of the UAE’s rise as a global energy player has died. David Heard landed on Abu Dhabi’s single airstrip as a young petroleum engineer in 1963, a year after the UAE exported its first cargo of crude oil, wrote Kate Dourian from MEES.

Over the next six decades, the Briton worked as an engineer and later as an energy advisor to Abu Dhabi’s rulers. Heard captured Abu Dhabi’s arc from a British protectorate to an economic powerhouse in his book From Pearls to Oil, the first in a series, written with assistance from his wife, who survives him.

Donald Trump supporters are feeling confident about their chances — maybe too confident, Semafor’s Benjy Sarlin wrote.

His top allies are increasingly boasting about sweeping new initiatives in politically perilous territory in the election’s final days, even as they have a knife’s-edge race to complete before they have a chance to enact any of them.