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Preliminary agreement would allow US chip imports

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Gulf region aims to become among top three global AI

centers

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President visits US troops in Middle East

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Qatar to invest in US airbase, says Trump

By Gram Slattery, Andrew Mills and Federico Maccioni

DOHA, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump

said on Thursday that Qatar will invest $10 billion in coming

years in the Al Udeid Air Base southwest of the country's

capital Doha, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle

East.

In a speech to U.S. troops at the base during his tour of

the Gulf, Trump also said Qatari defence purchases signed on

Wednesday are worth $42 billion.

Trump will later head to the United Arab Emirates, where

leaders are seeking U.S. help to make the wealthy Gulf nation a

global leader in artificial intelligence.

The U.S. has a preliminary agreement with the UAE to allow

it to import 500,000 of Nvidia's ( NVDA ) most advanced AI chips

a year, starting this year, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

The deal would boost the UAE's construction of data centers

vital to developing artificial intelligence models. But the

agreement has provoked national security concerns among sectors

of the U.S. government, and the terms could change, sources

said.

A string of business agreements has been inked during

Trump's four-day swing through the Gulf region, including a deal

for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 Boeing ( BA ) widebody jets, a

$600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S.

and $142 billion in U.S. arms sales to the kingdom.

The trip has also brought a flurry of diplomacy. Trump made

a surprise announcement on Tuesday that the U.S. will remove

longstanding sanctions on Syria and subsequently met with Syrian

interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

He urged Sharaa to establish ties with Syria's longtime foe

Israel.

In Abu Dhabi Trump will meet UAE President Sheikh Mohammed

bin Zayed Al Nahyan and other leaders.

AI is likely to be a focus of the final leg of Trump's trip.

Former President Joe Biden's administration had imposed

strict oversight of exports of U.S. AI chips to the Middle East

and other regions. Among the Biden administration's fears were

that the prized semiconductors would be diverted to China and

buttress Beijing's military strength.

Trump has made improving ties with some Gulf countries a key

goal of his administration. If all the proposed chip deals in

Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, come together, the

region would become a third power center in global AI

competition after the United States and China.

Trump had dangled the possibility of making a side trip to

Turkey to join Russia-Ukraine talks before returning to

Washington, but a U.S. official said on Wednesday that the

president would not make that stop.

(By Gram Slattery and Andrew Mills in Doha and Federico

Maccioni, Nayera Abdallah and Tala Ramadan in Dubai; Additional

reporting by Yousef Saba, Karen Freifeld and Hadeel Al Sayegh;

Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Osterman)