Bridgewater Associates’ founder Ray Dalio said on Monday that the Middle East is fast emerging as one of the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence hubs. He compared the rise of the region to the emergence of Silicon Valley as a hub for tech.
Dalio told CNBC the United Arab Emirates and its neighbors have combined vast pools of capital with an influx of global talent, creating a magnet for investment managers and AI innovators alike. The UAE and Saudi Arabia had launched massive AI initiatives this year.
A $10 billion agreement between Google Cloud and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund was announced this year. This agreement aims to create a global AI hub in the country, as part of a push to create data centers and AI workloads locally.
Earlier this year, major tech companies including OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, and Cisco teamed up to build a major Stargate artificial intelligence campus in the United Arab Emirates.
Dalio said, “What they’ve done is to create talented people. So this [region] is kind of becoming a Silicon Valley of capitalists … So now people are coming in … money is coming in, talent is coming in,” Dalio said when asked if Middle Eastern nations like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar can be leaders in the AI race.
Dalio, who has been visiting Abu Dhabi for more than three decades, said the Gulf’s transformation is the result of deliberate statecraft and long-term planning. He described the UAE as “a paradise in a world that’s troubled,” citing its leadership, stability, quality of life and ambition to build a globally competitive financial ecosystem.
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“There’s a buzz here, the way there’s a buzz in San Francisco, places like that, about AI or technology. It’s very similar to that,” Dalio said.
Dalio also voiced concerns about the future of the global economy. “The next year or two in the future is going to be more precarious,” he said, pointing to the convergence of what he calls the three dominant cycles: debt, U.S. political conflict and geopolitics. He also stated that he expects U.S. politics to be more disruptive going into 2026.
“As we go into the 2026 elections … you will see a lot more conflict in different ways,” Dalio said, adding that elevated interest rates and concentrated market leadership compound the vulnerability.
Dalio also restated his view that AI is in bubble territory, adding that investors shouldn’t rush for an exit, since valuations are stretched. “All the bubbles took place in times of great technological change,” Dalio said. “You don’t want to get out of it just because of the bubble. You want to look for the pricking of the bubble.” He added that the catalyst for the pricking usually comes from a tightening of money or a forced need to sell wealth to meet obligations.