WEBVTT - The Story: A Spymaster Sheikh’s AI Ambitions w/ Bradley Hope 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:03.640 Welcome to Tech Stuff. This is the story. Each week 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:06.480 on Wednesdays, we bring you an in depth interview with 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:08.600 someone who has a front row seat to the most 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:15.160 fascinating things happening in tech today. We're joined by Bradley Hope. 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.079 Hope is an investigative journalist and author. He's the co 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:25.240 founder of Project Brazen, a narrative nonfiction production studio based 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:29.320 in London and Singapore, and before starting his own journalism company, 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.000 Hope covered the Arab spring from Cairo, Beirut, and Abu 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.559 Dhabi and led investigations as a financial reporter at The 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.640 Wall Street Journal. He also co wrote the book Billion 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:44.120 Dollar Whale, about the Malaysian businessman Jolo. We asked Bradley 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:46.839 to join us from his studio in London to discuss 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:51.400 his recent piece in Wired Irresistibly, titled a Spymaster Shake 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:55.680 controls a one point five trillion dollar fortune. He wants 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.680 to use it to dominate Ai. So who is the 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:00.400 spy master? 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.319 Shaikh So? The spine master is Abu Dhabi. Royal Shaik 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:06.840 Taknun Benzayed al Nahyan. 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.319 Shak Tarnun is one of the twenty odd sons of 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.840 the United Arab Emirates first president. But back when Hope 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.600 started paying attention to this shadowy figure, he didn't play 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:17.959 a major role in government. 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:21.080 He was kind of this minor real estate tycoon with 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:22.440 Harbyish businesses. 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.000 When Hope moved to Abu Dhabi soon after the two 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.800 thousand and eight financial crisis, one of the things he 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.760 covered for a newspaper was real estate. The country was 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.240 in the midst of a building boom, and the craze 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:37.880 spread to the island surrounding Abu Dhabi, including a place 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.360 called Riem Island. Hope soon discovered that Reem Island was 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.800 actually Shake Taknun's personal project. 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:46.960 He wanted it to be kind of a little mini 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.120 manhattan next to Abadabi. It was like a building site, 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.480 you know. It was just tons of different projects rising up, 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:54.800 and even today it looks sort of half built. And 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.000 so I was always very interested in him because he 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:00.360 had this kind of diletantish thing about him that was 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:05.440 kind of irresistible. And over the years I watched as 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.960 he just rose higher and higher in the power structure 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:09.640 of Abu Dhabi. 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:14.360 Today, Sheikh Tagnun is the United Arab Emirates National Security Advisor, 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.720 the intelligence chief to one of the world's wealthiest and 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.120 most surveillance oriented small nations. Taknun is also the younger 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.880 brother of the Yue's President, Mohammad bin Zayed al Nayan. 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.639 Outside his duties as the national security Advisor, Taknun has 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.200 official control over much of Abu Dhabi's vast sovereign wealth. 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.560 According to Bloomberg News, he directly oversees a one point 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.720 five trillion dollar empire. To put that in perspective, that's 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.040 more cash than just about anybody on the planet. And 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.320 as you might expect of a spymaster, Sheikh Taknun is 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.280 a mysterious figure, but over the years, Bradley Hope has 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.400 been able to make enough connections in the UAE to 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:02.280 learn more about this extremely influential politician and diplomat, a 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.000 man who seems to be transforming the small but wealthy 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:09.720 country into a major AI power. You described him as 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.280 one third Gulf royal, one third fitness obsessed tech founder, 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.040 and one third bond villain. Can you talk a little 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.120 bit about those three legs of the stool of Tachmoon. 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.720 Well, I mean, so the bond villain part, you could 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.600 call it slightly unfair of me, but I find him 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.240 to be kind of giving off that vibe. He always 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.480 wears sunglasses indoors or outdoors, and it's because of a 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.560 light sensitivity, according to people I spoke to, but it 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.400 still gives him a James Bond villain a kind of feeling. 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:44.400 He commands this obscured network of companies that are all 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.600 involved in different types of espionage, and he has his 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.760 fingers in so many places. Like on one hand, he's 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:53.560 got all these AI companies. He's really mixed up in China. 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.480 He is a big investor in Israel. Under the normalization 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.400 of UAE Israel, he's kind of still the spymaster stuff. 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.040 He's always been obsessed with mixed martial arts and jiu 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:09.040 jitsu and has really become like this major patron of 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.240 the sport in the whole world. He flies over the 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.280 best sportsman in that sport and they come and train 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:16.960 with him and spend time with them. And I spoke 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.040 to a few of those guys and they said, you know, 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.839 he's just a kind of a fitness freak. He eats 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.560 one meal a day, he's exercising for two hours per day. 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.040 You know, he really believes in longevity, and you know, 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.000 I'm guessing that he probably takes like a hundred supplements 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:32.839 a day, you know, that kind of stuff. He's a 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.080 very interesting character. And then once you start studying the 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.560 Gulf royals, you really get to see what happens when 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.359 interesting characters are given access to resources, they just become 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:44.039 very interesting. 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:49.200 There's a great quote in your piece which is nearly 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:51.680 every story about royalty in the Gulf is a story 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.800 about succession, about paternalistic families trying to ward off external 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.599 threats and internal rivalries that crop up when inherited power 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:04.719 is up grabs. How is that relevant to understanding tachmoon Well, 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.320 I think that this has been something I spent a 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.279 lot of my journalistic career on, which is being fascinated 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.320 by these modern monarchies. 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.240 There's no real monarchy in the world except for the Gulf. 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.920 You know. These are true old fashioned monarchies where all 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:24.279 power is derived from these families, and they can make 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.600 huge decisions, and they can direct the entire country's wealth 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:32.400 towards achieving those goals. There's no technical mandate, like they 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.080 can't be voted out. But on the other hand, there's 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:39.240 a lot of brittleness that is created by generational transfer 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.360 of power, so by the time it gets to the 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:46.160 third generation, it's almost always getting very fraught. Behind every decision, 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.680 there's also a bit of maneuvering and trying to establish 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.359 what's my power going to be and if my brother 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:54.680 were to pass away, where do I stand, and all 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:55.240 that sort of. 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.760 Thing, and it's my understanding. This is almost exactly what 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:02.440 happened to Takmoon in twenty twenty two. His brother Mohammed 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:06.200 Benzaied became the president of the UAE, and shortly after that, 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:10.200 Muhammad named his own son as successor, and so am 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.599 I writing thinking there was kind of a need to 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.000 appease Taknun, who may have seen this decision as a snub. 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.919 Well, I'd say Tartannun became very ambitious over time, and 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.919 in the case that this younger son of Mahma Benzaid 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:26.960 became the crown prince, there needed to be some sort 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.600 of a trade with Toatnun to make him happy about 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.800 that arrangement, And essentially the deal was that he would 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.839 get much greater control over the investments of the country. 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:39.800 There's a detail in the story that I love about 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:44.880 how Taknun's sort of interest in technology began as a 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:49.080 personal fixation on the collaboration between man and machine. Can 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:50.120 you speak a little bit about that. 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.680 So back in the early two thousands when Shake Tatnun 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:59.160 started building this conglomerate called the Royal Group. Essentially, it's 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.000 a series of holding groups, which hold holding groups, which 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.600 hold companies, which hold further companies. One of the things 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.960 he got obsessed with was chess as a game that 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.880 he liked to play personally, and he became very interested 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.600 in how to invest in chess computers. This was the 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:19.080 era of Garry Kasparov playing against the Deep Blue, and 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:24.200 so he found an interesting I believe, Austrian computer scientists, 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.160 and it basically bankrolled that guy to develop a chess 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:32.600 computer called Hydra. And the Hydra was especially well known 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.240 during that period for this kind of man plus machine 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.160 style of playing chess. And so you would be able 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.000 to you as a human were there using it kind 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.080 of like how we use AI today. You use it 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:44.880 as a tool to play against a player. 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:46.600 As it suggests a range of moves and you pick 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:47.960 the most optimal one or. 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:50.520 Yeah, to some extent, I think to a large extent, 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:52.640 it tells you the next move and you just kind 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:58.200 of executed it. Yeah, So he was playing chess online 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.280 so much that the computer scientist was like wondering when 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:03.880 he was going to get offline because he needed to, 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:05.560 you know, tinker with the code and stuff. 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.720 Incredible. I mean, if you'll often talk about the Middle 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:10.800 East as a chess board, it's one of the kind 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.200 of hoary analogyes, for thinking about the Middle East. But 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.600 I mean, do you see something in Technom's fascination with 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.320 chess and desire to win in chess that is a 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.880 kind of key to understanding how he's approached his own 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:23.640 rights to power. 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.800 Well, I mean, to some extent, A country like the 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:31.280 UAE is in a very interesting sort of precarious position 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.440 compared to some other bigger country. It's pretty small. It's 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:38.280 a country of I think it's something like six million residents. 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.920 Of those, more than a million are actual emiratis, so 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.440 it's a very small population. The country is famously full 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.800 of expats, so there's no way that they could ever 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.199 go to war with another country. As a country, they 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.120 really have to be kind of strategically allied at the 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:56.680 same time as that they don't want to just be 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.160 a pawn of the West or of America. So they're 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.280 in things like developing a stronger relationship with China. So 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.920 I do think someone like Toatnoon and someone like the 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.319 President Muhammad Bin de Sided figuring out how how they 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.280 fit into the world is is a very strategic question 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:12.680 for them. 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:17.280 I want to kind of chart Technolog's progress from eccentric 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.280 with interest in chess and robotics to spy master to 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:26.080 this kind of current AI investor at large. But maybe 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.880 we can start with with his kind of becoming a 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.800 spy master. How did that start to happen? How did 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:32.600 it start to show up? 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.360 Well, I'll caveat by saying it's very hard to know 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:41.720 everything about these people because they don't give interviews, nobody 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.880 talks around them in an official capacity. You know, it's 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.800 a very difficult place to report on, and I'm only 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:50.640 able to do so because I've lived in the region 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.240 and i just developed enough relationships where I'm able to 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:57.280 do that. But my hypothesis around how he became a 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:02.520 spymaster is actually focused on this digit because when he 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.000 was running Royal Group and focusing on Rheam Island and 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.880 not really playing a huge role in sort of the 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.680 strategic part of the country. They started having some questions 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.360 about how do they use technology to enforce essentially a 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.079 police state because the UAE, like I said before, is 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.600 kind of fragile. It's kind of a spy's paradise because 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.040 all the countries in the world are there, and so 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.240 they're all spying against each other, and there's an element 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.200 of danger and risk to their whole positioning. If there 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.360 was a bomb that exploded in Dubai or something, that 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.839 would be hugely problematic for the country. So they were 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.640 thinking about, well, we can't have like police on every corner. 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.280 We're not China, we don't have that size of a population, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.800 so we need to use other techniques, and technology was 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.480 the answer, you know. And so I think top Nune 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.680 just had a much greater appreciation of technology and that 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.720 was enough to make him start to play a crucial 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.000 role in how do we use technology for domestic security 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.480 and then overtime for external threats as well. And so 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.600 there was like a pro democracy activist in the UAE, 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.640 and famously, when they figured out how his computer had 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.959 been hacked, they traced it back to the Royal Group 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.240 there was like a connection in the kind of digital trail, 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.640 So that's why I have that hypothesis. And then also 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.360 there's an element of his personality which is useful too, 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.400 which is he doesn't seem to me in all my 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.440 reporting to be a judgmental person or a dogmatic person 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.360 at all, which is probably useful to be as a spymaster. 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.880 So whenever, for example, secret meetings happened, he would be 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.439 often the person that would go, and it wouldn't be 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.160 like a news item for him to go, versus if 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.000 his brother went. The kind of effective ruler, and he 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.520 seemed to have a kind of cool temper because the 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.880 UAE was in this very pitched, never physical, but very 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:57.360 heated battle with Qatar, this other little island nearby, and 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.280 eventually when they reached a deal mostly broke good by 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.640 Saudi Arabia, it was only tak Noon who would go 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.720 and meet the quitaris. So I think that's kind of 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:08.960 why he eased into the role to some extent. 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:11.959 What was some of the other kind of signature cyber 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.280 espionage programs and did you have any experience of them 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:17.880 in the period you were living in UAE. 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:20.640 I had this kind of funny experience. One day, I 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.000 think probably in two thousand and nine or so, everyone 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.520 had blackberries at that time, iPhones were not as popular, 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.920 and I picked the BlackBerry up to speak into it, 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:30.960 and it was so hot that it almost burnd me 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:32.720 the mic in my phone, and I thought there was 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.120 something going wrong with it. But then everybody else started 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.400 having the same problem, that they were reporting the same problem, 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:41.760 and then emerged on a security website that what had 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.040 happened was they had tried to roll out to all 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:48.000 Blackberries a kind of patch that allowed them to selectively 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.439 download all of the messages of that person, because at 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.000 that time, BlackBerry messengers were considered very secure and you 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.720 couldn't get BlackBerry emails, and so basically the UA government 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.920 couldn't access what was happening on BlackBerry messengers. But instead 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:02.760 of rolling it out correctly, they rolled it out so 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.920 that all the phones instantly started trying to download all 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.800 the messages to a central server, and that server just 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.720 got completely overloaded instantly, But because it kept trying to 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:13.360 access it over and over again, it was heating up. 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.440 The phones and was taken and directly involved in that. 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:17.480 We don't know, I guess, but do you have hypothesis 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:18.320 that he may have been. 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:20.439 I think it was part of the kinds of things 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:21.679 he was working on. I don't know if it was 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:29.959 his particular responsibility or decision, but I think yeah. 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.120 Coming up, how do spymaster Shake became a pivotal player 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:44.080 in the global race for AI stay with us? How 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:50.080 did this sort of experience with building a technological surveillance 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:55.000 architecture prepare technom for the current chapter? I mean, how 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.120 do you go from the mid two thousands to today 0:13:58.160 --> 0:13:59.720 in terms of the scale of what he's trying to 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.599 achieve even and how did this cyberspionare stuff in a 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:04.040 sense prepare him for the moment? 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.960 Well, I would say probably right now, the cyber espionage 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.679 stuff is actually holding him back to some extent because 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:13.920 he has it's a bit of a checkered history for 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.200 because the UAE has a lot of money and it 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:19.960 wants to invest that money in a way that results 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.200 in more money being made. And also they're quite trend following. 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:27.240 They love new technology, and when there's a big sector 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.920 interest in the world, they also are interested in that sector. 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.840 And then also any wealthy developing country so to speak, 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.480 can you use AI as a differentiator because they're going 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.960 to be less focused on like AI ethics or controls. 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:43.240 They'll be more focused on just using it, getting it going, 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.480 but there will be less handringing about the problems and 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:48.760 risks of that. So I think the UA is just 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.640 a place that is generating a lot of money because 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.800 of oil, and they're looking for places to put it, 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:56.680 and they're excited to put it into the things that 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:57.560 seem exciting. 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.720 One of these things is Stargate, right star Yeah, And 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.960 Stargate is this huge investment program to build data centers 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.400 that Trump announced recently with Larry Ellison from Oracle and 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.280 Sam Altman from Open AI and Nassi actually so from SoftBank. 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:14.920 According to your piece, Taknoon is in control of an 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.840 enormous amount of money one point five trillion dollars, and 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:22.000 after he was kind of passed over in the succession race, 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.920 he was made chairman of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:28.960 a sovereign wealth fund that controls money on behalf of 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.640 the government. On top of that, Taknoon presides over something 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.480 called Group forty two or G forty two. Can you 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.000 tell us a bit more about this tech conglomerate. 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:43.760 So one of Tartnun's favorite things are conglomerates, and there's 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:47.560 many different parts of money in Abudwi. There's more passive 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.760 big funds like the abadw Investment Authority, and then there's 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.840 all these more aggressive funds. There's Mubadala, and then there's 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.480 even more aggressive funds which are like the Tatnoon entities. 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.400 These different conglomerates. One of the ones he created was 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.600 called G forty two or Group forty two is supposedly 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.520 a reference to is that Hitchiker's Guy, Hitchiker's Guide to 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.880 the Galaxy. Yeah, so this group was a kind of 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.600 Frankenstein in a way. It collected some old companies that 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.120 were moved under it, and then it also established new initiatives, 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.360 and like all golf things, it was extremely well funded, 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.280 you know, in the billions. But also hidden within the 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:28.680 structure are companies that could be even perceived as a 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:30.960 bit problematic because of the kind of work they were doing. 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.200 So it kind of has again this James Bond villain 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:35.280 vibe Group forty two. 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.040 So there's this one chess game happening in the Middle 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.640 East between Kutter and Saudi and UAE, and then there's 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:48.120 another global chess game when it comes to technology, and 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.680 I think we just talked about Stargate, but then we 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.080 had the deep seek Chinese AI model. We've had the 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.680 hand ringing about whether or not export controls on video 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:02.680 chips actually effective. Is taking on positioning himself with the 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:07.159 UAE's cash and his investments, to play a role in 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.160 this larger global chess game. 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.119 I think in general, the UAE doesn't have an inherent 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.879 AI advantage. They haven't, for example, drawn all the world's 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.520 best AI people to live in Abu Dawi to build 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.159 their companies. So what they can do is piggyback on 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.760 these bigger companies in Silicon Valley. And the challenge that 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.439 they've had in the chess game is that the US 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.760 is taking this very protectionist view of AI and they're 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.359 saying this is like a national treasure security issue, and 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:38.920 they told the UA, look, you can't work with China 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.000 if you're going to work with US. So one of 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:42.760 the things that group for you two has had to do, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.080 and what Town News had to do is basically jettison 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.679 all of this maybe perhaps billions of dollars of investment 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.080 in China related joint ventures just to have access to 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:57.879 the seemingly cutting edge USAI companies. 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.800 So in a sense, the US forced Tarknoon into a 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.920 choice between the US and China in terms of access 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:07.200 to investment. 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.120 Yes, exactly, because if the UAE remained close with China, 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.280 especially some of these companies like Huawei and had this 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.639 potential risk according to the US of IP leakage and 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.640 information leakage to the Chinese companies and the government, then 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:25.920 the US was going to block them from having any 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.479 of the fancy Nvidia chips that you need to kind 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.360 of do this AI training and make it very difficult 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.840 for them to have play a role in AI at all. 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.119 And why now and what made what made this moment 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:39.840 that the one to kind of run a big story 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:40.840 on Tagnoon. 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:44.919 Well, primarily I would say is that he had become 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.119 such a high profile person. So not only had he 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.800 taken on so much money control of so much money 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.280 in the country, so he became this big investor globally, 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.840 but also he had really sort of broken through from 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.800 spymaster to kind of citing to be this more public figure. 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.440 So even last summer he was on this big almost 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:07.439 like a road show. It is very similar to when 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.920 Mohammed bin Salman first came to America and he had 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:13.520 all the meetings in Silicon Valley and in Texas. So 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.320 actually taught Nun did the exact same trip this last summer, 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.280 and it was all in anticipation of this kind of 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.840 rebranding of him and the rebranding of his efforts as 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:27.959 being you know, the friendly partner in AI investing. And 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:32.639 obviously this coincides with this huge demand for funding because 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.280 you know, these companies like open Ai are just absorbing 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:38.280 billions of dollars and just burning it on training new 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.040 models and trying to grow and defeat the competition. 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:43.840 Can you just explain what is the balance they're trying 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:48.919 to strike between investing in projects like Stargate and investing domestically. 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:53.920 Well, I think Stargate is for the UA. Stargate would 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:58.800 be a political investment to just make Trump happy because 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.880 it means that because Trump loves to make announcements where 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.320 there's big numbers, and they contributed to that. So anybody 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.440 who comes to Washington and agrees to make a big 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:10.560 number announcement gets you know, FaceTime with the President. So 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.120 there's a political element for sure. And then on top 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:17.639 of that, it's continuing to beat down the skepticism of 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.679 the UAE as a trustworthy partner. There's a lot of 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.399 people in the security apparatus who think it's a terrible 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.760 idea to allow anything sensitive within the UAE. Not not 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:29.840 even because the UA wants to leak it, but maybe 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.359 they just can't even prevent it from leaking in some cases, 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:35.280 like it may just be considered a leaky place for 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.720 one reason or another. And then also it's a chance 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.359 for them to grow closer to these companies like open 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:45.160 AI and potentially get open AI to let them build 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.840 facilities in the UA, which leads to other economic benefits 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.600 for the UAE. And also they always like to be 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.439 close to domain experts so that they can figure out 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:57.719 how they might be able to apply those innovations in 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.520 the country. So the UA has in a bit of 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:02.720 head of the curve. They had the first Minister of 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.880 AI before this big AI boom, and I think because 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:08.679 they're so small, they really want to use this to 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.600 tackle the bureaucracy of the country and make it possible 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:14.119 to even better self govern themselves. 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.720 And of course one of the key things you need 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:19.879 a lot of AI right now seemingly is cash, but 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.320 the other is energy. So there is a there's a 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:27.200 kind of geo strategic advantage that UA has in that respect, right. 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:30.960 Yeah, And also the UA because of the distorted amount 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:35.120 of capital in Abu Dhabi and because everything is top down, 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:37.560 they end up doing a lot of things that are 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:41.080 not economically feasible in the short term, Like, for example, 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.880 when they're building infrastructure, they overbuild. They like vastly overbuild 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:49.040