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MGX, the Abu Dhabi AI investment firm, has raised close to $50 billion from regional and global investors to accelerate spending on AI infrastructure and technology, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg.
The capital came from regional sovereign wealth funds, global pension funds and large institutional investors, the people said. The fund closed in recent weeks and MGX has already begun deploying from it, ranking it among the largest dedicated AI investment vehicles ever raised. A representative for MGX declined to comment to Bloomberg.
Drawing third-party capital distinguishes MGX from traditional Gulf sovereign funds, which largely deploy government money, and reflects a vehicle designed from the outset to operate more like a global alternative asset manager, raising institutional capital while investing alongside its Abu Dhabi sponsors. It’s arguably one of the first times the emirate, long an exporter of capital, has leaned on its network to raise at this scale.
Founded in 2024 and chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser and brother to the president, MGX is backed by Mubadala and G42 and sits at the centre of the country's AI industrial policy.
The firm has assembled a portfolio spanning frontier models, semiconductor infrastructure and data centres, with stakes including OpenAI and xAI, and is a core member of the $30 billion infrastructure partnership alongside BlackRock, Microsoft and Global Infrastructure Partners.
In April, MGX co-led OpenAI's $122 billion round at an $852 billion valuation, the largest private funding round in tech history, and in January it joined QIA in xAI's $20 billion Series E.
The raise adds firepower as MGX races toward a target of more than $100 billion in AUM, having previously signalled plans to deploy as much as $10 billion a year and to raise a large third-party fund. It also deepens Abu Dhabi's position as one of the principal financiers of the AI boom, combining sovereign capital, low-cost energy for data centres and close ties to global technology firms.
The new money lands just as the AI-driven equity rally has wobbled this month, with South Korean shares falling 10% on Tuesday in a chip-led rout and SpaceX shedding more than $600 billion in value across three sessions, as investors question whether valuations for the heaviest AI spenders have run too far.
The cost of frontier AI, meanwhile, keeps climbing with training models and building the data centres and chips to run them now demanding tens of billions of dollars, pushing investors toward ever-larger pools of capital.
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