Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company is teaming up with US-based Together AI to explore new artificial intelligence infrastructure opportunities in the UAE. The deal matters because it signals more serious money and tech talent flowing into the country’s AI ambitions, right as the UAE races to become a regional hub for the technology.
The partnership was announced on Tuesday, 29th September 2026. Under the agreement, Together AI will set up a local presence in Abu Dhabi. That means the company’s inference and research teams will be based closer to the developers and businesses across the UAE and wider region who are building AI applications.
Why Abu Dhabi is becoming a magnet for AI investment
Together AI is not a small player. The company describes itself as the “AI Native Cloud” for building and running generative AI using open-source models. It was founded in 2022 and is headquartered in San Francisco. Its platform covers inference, model shaping and accelerated compute, which are the building blocks developers need to create and run AI tools.
Mubadala already has skin in the game. Back on 1st July 2026, the Abu Dhabi sovereign investor put US$100 million into Together AI’s Series C funding round. That investment came alongside a group of other global technology and financial backers. This new partnership builds directly on that earlier bet, moving from simply funding the company to actively working with it on the ground in the UAE.
For UAE and GCC readers, this is part of a bigger pattern. Abu Dhabi has been positioning itself as a serious destination for AI infrastructure, the data centres, chips and cloud platforms that power everything from chatbots to enterprise software. Having a company like Together AI physically present in the capital means local developers and businesses get faster, closer access to advanced AI tools instead of relying purely on infrastructure based overseas.
What this means for businesses, developers and the wider region
If you run a business in the UAE that is experimenting with AI, or you are a developer building apps on open-source models, this kind of move matters. Having inference and research capabilities based in Abu Dhabi, rather than only in the US, can mean lower latency, easier access to support, and a stronger local ecosystem to tap into.
It also fits into the broader story of how Gulf sovereign wealth is being deployed. Mubadala is one of the region’s major institutional investors, and its UAE Investments Platform is specifically focused on backing ventures that can grow the country’s economy and capabilities. Teaming up with a fast-growing AI company like Together AI, after already investing capital in its funding round, shows a strategy of going beyond writing cheques toward building actual infrastructure and partnerships on home turf.
This also lands at a moment when the UAE is seeing a wave of investment news tied to technology and AI specifically. Other recent announcements point to the country trying to position itself both as a place that attracts global capital and as a source of capital itself, backing international ventures. The Mubadala-Together AI deal fits that pattern: an Abu Dhabi investor putting money into a Silicon Valley AI company, and now bringing that company’s capabilities back into the UAE.
For readers in the broader GCC, the move is a reminder that AI infrastructure is becoming a competitive field, not just for governments but for private companies choosing where to set up shop. When a company picks Abu Dhabi for a regional presence, it often reflects confidence in the local market’s demand, regulatory environment and investment backing. That can ripple out into job creation, more tech talent moving to the emirate, and more local companies gaining access to cutting-edge AI tools without having to look abroad.
What to watch next: details on what specific AI infrastructure projects come out of this partnership, and whether other AI companies follow Together AI’s lead in setting up locally in Abu Dhabi, backed by Mubadala’s growing portfolio of AI investments. As reported by WAM, the companies are still in the early stages of exploring opportunities, so the real test will be what concrete projects or facilities emerge from this collaboration in the months ahead.
