Abu Dhabi-based MGX, the sovereign-backed investment vehicle launched last year to spearhead the UAE’s artificial intelligence ambitions, is weighing plans to raise up to $25 billion in third-party capital, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday citing people familiar with the matter. The move could position it as one of the world’s largest AI-focused funds.
MGX is exploring a fund structure targeting strategic and institutional investors in the Gulf and beyond, the people said, declining to be identified as the information is private. Its founding backers, sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company and Emirati AI holding firm G42, will remain core shareholders. However, new financial participants are being sought to scale MGX’s global footprint and asset base.
While no final decisions have been made, a raise of this scale would mark a rare moment of capital aggregation for Abu Dhabi, a city better known for exporting capital than attracting it. MGX’s approach could redefine how Gulf entities shape global technology markets not just through direct investment but by inviting co-investors into sovereign-led platforms.
Founded in 2024 and overseen by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security advisor and brother to the president, MGX is at the centre of the country’s multi-billion-dollar AI industrial policy.
Its mandate is sweeping. The firm has taken positions in OpenAI, Elon Musk’s xAI, and is a core member of the $30 billion Global AI Infrastructure Partnership alongside Microsoft, BlackRock, and Global Infrastructure Partners. That initiative, announced last September, aims to build data centers and energy infrastructure in strategic locations globally.
In the US, MGX has hired senior executives from Apollo and Warburg Pincus as it ramps up operations. And in Europe, it is reportedly one of the lead investors in a forthcoming $1 billion round for Mistral, the Paris-based open-source LLM startup. The new round, first reported by the Financial Times, could lift Mistral’s valuation to $10 billion, just months after it raised €600 million to build a data center outside Paris.
That push builds on a broader UAE–France AI corridor. In early 2024, the two countries signed a framework agreement for a 1-gigawatt AI-dedicated data centre, estimated to draw between $30 billion and $50 billion in investment.
MGX is also said to be in talks to participate in a $3 to $5 billion round for Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude, alongside fellow sovereigns like Qatar Investment Authority and Singapore’s GIC, and lead investor Iconiq Capital. The deal could value Anthropic at $170 billion, nearly triple its Series E valuation from March.
The funding surge comes as Anthropic reportedly surpasses $4 billion in ARR, driven by strong enterprise demand. But regional observers took note when an internal memo leaked earlier this year showed CEO Dario Amodei referencing the Middle East as a source of “a truly giant amount of capital, easily $100 billion or more,” while stressing that Anthropic would not allow operational influence or local data centres in exchange for investment.
While the comments triggered criticism from Gulf stakeholders, they appear to have had little impact on deal momentum.
