U.S. Rewards U.A.E. with Coveted AI Chips After Iran War

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0:33Senators look to give President Trump authority to impose tariffs on the five largest importers of Russian oil and gas. Plus, in a world first, Australia lays out national guidelines to control how data centers use water and power. And Meta's AI-powered glasses are everywhere, raising major privacy concerns. On the glasses, there's a white light that indicates the glasses are recording. Some users have covered up that white light, and there's even shops on TikTok that sell stickers to help cover up that white light. It's Wednesday, July 15th. I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas.

1:09And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. The U.S. has given the United Arab Emirates expanded access to highly coveted artificial intelligence chips as a reward for its help with the war against Iran. The UAE has carried out dozens of airstrikes against Iran, intercepted hundreds of missiles, and helped to keep oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Journal finance reporter Elliot Brown writes that the move caps a years-long push by the Gulf state to obtain American technology to diversify its economy. Elliot, what's in this agreement?

1:44What this agreement does is it moves the UAE from a bucket of countries that includes Yemen and China and into a bucket that includes Europe and South Korea. And it allows them to purchase unlimited chips or as many as the market will bear for AI, at least for its flagship AI company, G42, and for any American hyperscalers that are building data centers in the country. And what is the hope for how this will change their economy? Previously, the UAE had been treated the same as China. Now it's quite elevated in its access to this technology. What is the hope for the Gulf nation? Yeah, the UAE in particular has really made a big part of their strategy to be ahead on AI.

2:29They want to become a huge data center hub. And so they're right now building a giant data center outside of Abu Dhabi. They want to build five gigawatts worth, which is, you know, the equivalent power of two and a half Hoover dams. And so this would be one of the biggest concentrations of data centers for AI in the world. And they just sort of see that as critical to becoming a world leader in AI, which is their goal. And what about the timing here? You write that this came after a lengthy lobbying effort. Yeah, this has been a huge priority for the leadership in Abu Dhabi, particularly Sheikh Taknoon bin Zayed, who's the brother of the president and the national security advisor.

3:08He's been pushing since the Biden administration, making lots of trips to Washington to unshackle the UAE and let it buy tens of billions of dollars of chips. And so they finally had success here after some smaller successes with both presidents because of their help with the Iran war. And so the way the Commerce Department is casting this in the U.S. is that this is a reward for its help with Operation Epic Fury. Another thing is the UAE has really stood out in other ways as embracing the Trump administration's policies. In the first term, they signed the Abraham Accords and were sort of the main power there, which established relations and trading between some of the Gulf states and Israel.

3:52Some people may say it's a reward for Sheikh Tuknun's business dealings with the president. However, we should probably draw the line between him and G42, which you've done so well in your past reporting. How will this amplify those questions of conflict of interest in this specific deal? Yeah, so Sheikh Tuknun controls G42, which is the main beneficiary of this. He also personally invested in an entity that purchased a 49 % stake in the Trump family's crypto company, World Liberty Financial. And so that essentially meant that four days before the inauguration, Shake Talk Noon was enriching the president to a large sum.

4:37It was the president reported$263 million of gains from that sale in 2025. And that's one of the larger chunks of income he reported for the whole year. And so that's been a huge point of scrutiny for Democrats, for other critics outside the government, as it's, you know, the brother of a president of a foreign entity directly enriching the president. And we should note that the White House has denied any conflicts of interest here. But has there been any other commentary from the UAE or from Washington on the nature of this deal? The UAE cast it as, you know, the culmination of decades of cooperation and then also, you know, sort of increased partnership on AI.

5:22There had been a lot of concerns early on about the UAE's ties to China. That's largely why they were restricted from buying chips earlier. I think a lot of those concerns have been quelled. The UAE has put in a lot of measures that have satisfied a number of prior China hawks. But there are still a fair amount of folks who are concerned that China could get access to these chips because the UAE is such a large trading partner. Elliot Brown, thank you so much. Thank you.

5:53Australia is the first country in the world to announce plans to govern the use of water and power for data centers. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a new AI office will address copyright issues and ensure states and towns have a national framework to follow when considering applications for data centers. Mary Lou Marr is a professor of computer science at the University of Sydney. The attitude or the stance that the prime minister was taking was that they shouldn't just come in and set up their data centers, that they have to earn the right to do that. He called it something like a social license.

6:28But there should be a contribution from these companies that make all their money out of these data centers to bundle that back into Australia that were not just a resource to be exploited. Still, she thinks Australia's new AI policies are lacking in some crucial areas. The prime minister didn't really address a couple elephants in the room. One is the lack of AI literacy and safety issues. Those are huge. the AI ethics. He was just silent on that. And I worry about that. And he was really silent on the investment in innovation here. And in one of the first lawsuits in the U.S. to scrutinize the potential role of AI in determining layoffs, a group of Meta employees is suing the social media company, alleging it discriminated against workers with disabilities or on protected leave.

7:16Meta began laying off 8 ,000 people in May, roughly 10 % of its workforce. The federal lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California says the company used internal artificial intelligence systems to look at productivity and AI token use to determine layoffs, and so targeted employees who had missed work because of medical conditions or other leave. A Meta spokesman rejected the allegations and said workforce management decisions were made by people, not AI.

7:47In AI earnings this morning, Dutch chip machine supplier ASML raised its annual sales guidance for the second time. ASML machines form the circuits inside semiconductors and are the go-to for big chip makers like TSMC and Intel. The company said it was now projecting annual sales between 43 and 45 billion euros. Meanwhile, DeepSeek is preparing for an IPO as early as the second quarter of next year, which the company said would help fund costly research and fuel growth. We understand the Chinese AI heavyweight is discussing a listing in Shanghai and raised more than$7 billion in its first funding round last month.

8:23Industry executives say China's AI sector is at risk of stalling in its race with the U.S. without an injection of capital to fund expansion. Coming up, a group of bipartisan lawmakers hope to pass a bill sanctioning countries buying Russian energy and a bid to honor Senator Lindsey Graham following his death over the weekend. That story and more after the break. AI isn't just changing how we do business. It involves a new kind of leadership. On the season one finale of Tech Fluential, we trace the through lines across episodes, revisiting powerful insights from executives who are helping redefine technology leadership for the age of AI.

8:59Learn why tech is now a shared enterprise agenda and how you can drive real, durable value for your organization. Where technology and influence converge, new opportunities can emerge. That's Tech Fluential, a podcast from Deloitte and custom content from WSJ.

9:19In Washington, a group of senators gathered to show bipartisan support for a new bill aimed at punishing Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine that had been championed by late Senator Lindsey Graham. Senator Richard Blumenthal drafted the bill with Graham. The Democrat from Connecticut said it would give President Trump fresh authority to impose tariffs on the five largest importers of Russian oil and gas, including China and India. It's been referred to as a tariffs bill, but actually it imposes full blocking sanctions on wide swaths of the Russian economy, including its energy industry, financial industry, defense industrial base, oligarchs, business people, and Vladimir Putin himself.

10:04Under the draft bill, Trump could impose up to 100 % tariffs on the individual countries and individuals facilitating those energy sales. It would also target Russia's shadow fleet, a secretive network of aging vessels used to circumvent global sanctions. Analysts said if it becomes law, it would be the first time Congress has authorized the use of tariffs as an explicit geopolitical weapon. Trump's team said the president supported the bill, which is expected to be introduced in Congress as soon as this week. In the weight loss wars, the GLP-1 pill from Novo Nordisk is pulling way ahead of Eli Lilly's.

10:39There's very little understanding that this is a chronic disease. I think the pill is giving them more options, so it's really exciting for us. That's Novo's CEO Mike Deustar speaking to British broadcaster ITV. While Lilly is the market leader in obesity shots, it hasn't yet made a major dent in the pill market, capturing only about 11 percent of prescription volume for new pills. Doctors say patients prefer Novo's Wegovi pill over Lilly's Fondeo because studies show it leads to greater average weight loss. The race is still in its early stages, and a Lilly spokesperson said that they expect momentum to build.

11:16And Paramount's$81 billion takeover of Warner Brothers' discovery is facing further blowback, this time from a union representing Hollywood screenwriters who sued to block the deal a day after a coalition of 12 Democratic state attorneys general challenged the transaction. The Writers Guild of America alleged in its complaint that the proposed merger is anti-competitive and would lead to fewer jobs and suppressed wages.

11:43And finally, Hey Meta, take a picture. There's a good chance you've been served up one of the many ads for Meta's smart glasses on YouTube or scrolling social media lately. Hey Meta, turn it up. That might include this one with Kylie Jenner, which Meta hopes will help their AI-enabled sunglasses to catch on. You may have also been enraged by seeing the glasses aimed at you on the street or on the subway. When Meta's smart glasses first got released initially five years ago, they were not very popular. But they've started to gain traction in the last few years, and last year Meta sold 7 million pairs of them.

12:19Megan Bobrovsky covers Meta from our San Francisco bureau. She says that certain features on the glasses have become a privacy lightning rod. On the glasses, there's a white light that indicates the glasses are recording. Some users have covered up that white light, and there's even shops on TikTok that sell stickers to help cover up that white light. Meta recently issued a tamper detection software update to address that situation. The company has also talked about upcoming potential features on the glasses, including a feature called Name Tag that would remember the faces of people you've met.

12:54Privacy advocates have raised concerns about that feature, saying that they don't want Meta's devices to be able to recognize their faces. More than 70 state and national civil rights organizations signed a letter earlier this year calling a Meta to halt plans to equip the glasses with the Name Tag feature. Meta's technology chief said recently that the name tag data would only be available while wearing their glasses, would be encrypted to the device, and wouldn't be stored in a general database. Some places have already gone so far as to ban smart glasses. Earlier this month, New York State court banned the glasses in all of their courthouses, so you can't wear smart glasses inside those courthouses.

13:30And at a trial earlier this year in Los Angeles, a judge told Meta employees who were wearing the glasses to take them off. Meta says it's planning to build in privacy features alongside additional functions like assessing the mood of users and building them customized workout plans. And that's it for What's News for this Wednesday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer is Sondra Kilhoff. And I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

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