Abu Dhabi keeps spreading sovereign capital abroad with EUR 40 bn German package

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz unveiled a EUR 40 bn (USD 46.5 bn) UAE investment package spanning industry, AI, digital infrastructure, and energy, during bin Zayed’s visit to Germany this week — more than doubling the EUR 34 bn Abu Dhabi has already put into the German economy, according to a joint declaration. The package includes a commitment to develop 1 GW of German data center capacity, while 29 business-to-business agreements worth just over EUR 9.36 bn involving Adnoc, Masdar, RWE, and Covestro were also agreed.

A pattern of Gulf mega-pledges: The UAE signed nearly identical packages with France and Italy last year, each pairing 1 GW of data center capacity with broader AI cooperation. The France agreement has already yielded a 1.4 GW MGX-backed AI data center campus near Paris and, more recently, a USD 1 bn 50-satellite AI-enabled constellation led by Emirati firms.

The UAE is more than five months into a regional war that would give it every excuse to keep its capital close to home instead. Instead, the Germany agreement — read alongside similar pledges to France, Italy, and Turkey — looks like a deliberate spread of sovereign firepower across partners who can help it diversify and secure supply chains and, ideally, host equipment production that helps route around export restrictions.

Yes, but: Big numbers don't always turn into big cheques. The UAE’s pledges haven’t been as productive elsewhere, with none of the USD 50 bn the UAE pledged in Canada last year having moved as Ottawa's own Major Projects Office said it simply has no shovel-ready projects to deploy the money into earlier this year. Germany looks further along — a signed council, a business forum, and named corporate partners tend to travel faster than a headline figure.