President Trump’s Middle East Visit Unleashes Wave of AI Semiconductor Deals

President Donald Trump’s May 2025 trip to the Middle East produced much more than just a flare of headlines. It triggered a wave of strategic semiconductor and AI infrastructure announcements that will reshape the geopolitical landscape of advanced computing.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) emerged as the two dominant regional hubs, drawing a new flow of U.S. technology partnerships, multi-billion-dollar chip supply agreements, and long-term commitments from hyperscalers and AI developers. For our Gilder’s Guidepost readers, we will focus on what the trip accomplished for U.S. semiconductor sales.

At the center of these developments is HUMAIN, a newly launched Saudi AI vehicle backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), with a mission to establish a sovereign AI infrastructure stack spanning compute, software, and edge services. In parallel, the UAE’s longstanding technology ambitions are accelerating through deeper engagement with U.S. companies and capital commitments.

Evaluating the financial scale, company-level exposure, and execution timeframe of each major initiative, we supply detailed tables and data visualizations.

Strategic Infrastructure Partnerships Announced During the Visit

According to Table 1, the wave of AI-related agreements reached during or immediately following President Trump’s Middle East visit include over a dozen critical partnerships. These range from direct chip procurement to full-stack cloud and connectivity deals. Among the leading beneficiaries are Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), AMD (NASDAQ: AMD), Cisco (NASDAQ; CSCO), OpenAI, and SpaceX.

The largest deal is a $10 billion corridor partnership between AMD and HUMAIN, aimed at delivering a combination of CPUs (central processing units), graphics processing units (GPUs), and software infrastructure across data centers that stretch from the United States to Saudi Arabia. Over the next five years, Nvidia also committed to supplying HUMAIN with hundreds of thousands of advanced GPUs, including 18,000 of its latest GB300 Blackwell processors. Amazon Web Services (AWS), meanwhile, is leading development of a sovereign AI cloud zone in Saudi Arabia, anchored by a $5 billion infrastructure buildout.

The diversity and scope of these deals highlight not only an ambition to import advanced chips but to build entire AI infrastructures, integrated from compute silicon to the cloud edge.

Estimated Financial Impact for Leading U.S. Technology Companies

According to Table 2, the financial upside for U.S.-based companies involved in these agreements is significant. Nvidia could see between $15 billion and $25 billion in revenue over the next three years from direct GPU and networking sales, particularly via its GB300 Blackwell series and InfiniBand interconnect systems (mostly from its ownership of Mellanox in Israel).

AMD’s $10 billion corridor agreement also implies substantial datacenter hardware shipments. Both Nvidia and AMD are current recommendations in the Gilder’s Technology Report.

Also major winners are Amazon (via AWS) and Cisco. AWS will lead sovereign cloud efforts, creating long-term operating leverage, while Cisco becomes a strategic layer in the hyperscale infrastructure backbone. Emerging players like OpenAI and Starlink may realize more modest initial returns, but their involvement reflects broader Gulf integration of U.S. AI platforms.

Given the extended buildout timelines and repeat procurement cycles, these agreements could act as multi-year buffers against cyclical weakness elsewhere in the semiconductor market.

Global and Regional Growth in Semiconductor Revenues

Putting these Gulf state investments in context, the chart below shows the forecasted rise in global AI chip revenue, from $42 billion in 2024 to $120 billion in 2028, with the Middle East accounting for a rising share.

According to Chart 1, global AI chip revenues are forecast to grow from $42 billion in 2024 to $120 billion by 2028, reflecting sovereign infrastructure buildouts, hyperscaler AI training clusters, and widespread inference deployments in distributed access systems. This surge is being powered not just by U.S. and Chinese demand, but increasingly by new regional actors such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Chart 1

The Middle East’s share of global semiconductor infrastructure spending is expected to rise rapidly—from less than 1% in 2023 to 5% by 2027. While still modest in relative terms, this 500% jump reflects increasing coordination between public funds and U.S. tech partners.

While still a small percentage overall, this represents a sharp absolute increase and highlights the rapid investment velocity of sovereign-backed AI initiatives across the Gulf region, as new partnerships with Nvidia, AMD, Amazon, and Cisco translate into real infrastructure spend.

Chart 2

Both charts are sourced from The Information Network and reflect a synthesis of company guidance, regional deal announcements, and global AI spending projections.

President Trump’s Middle East visit marks more than just diplomatic symbolism—it has catalyzed a new axis for global semiconductor deployment, as the Gulf becomes a core export destination for the most advanced AI infrastructure the U.S. (together with Israel) can offer.