Good morning, lovely people. The reshuffling of Emirati firms’ investments overseas is an ongoing theme this week — as we report in today’s issue, Al Habtoor is now suing Lebanese authorities for losses it has incurred due to measures that blocked its access to deposited funds in the country.

Meanwhile, sovereign wealth fund Mubadala sold its stake in US healthcare platform Arcadia, and bought into another US healthcare startup, L-Nutra, as well as agreed to set up a JV with the firm in Abu Dhabi.

It’s also busy on the energy front this morning, with Adnoc’s XRG upping its stake in the Rio Grande LNG project in Texas, Mark Cables wrapping up a thermal power plant project in Burkina Faso, and Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum securing supply agreements for oil in Kurdistan.

Happening today

Italian president lands for a state visit: President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan will meet with Italian President Sergio Mattarella today during his state visit to the UAE aimed at strengthening bilateral cooperation and investments, state news agency Wam reports.

Last year’s meeting made headlines, with the UAE announcing plans to invest USD 40 bn in the country, covering areas like data centers, AI, defense tech, and energy. Italy is the UAE’s closest trading partner in the EU, with bilateral non-oil trade reaching USD 7.9 bn in 1H 2025, a 14.6% increase y-o-y, Foreign Trade Minister Thani Al Zeyoudi previously said in a post on X.

Gulfood is underway, and runs until this Friday — but this time it’s taking place in two different venues: Dubai World Trade Center and Dubai Exhibition Center in Expo City. The massive F&B event will gather food distributors, producers, government officials, and investors and startups alike under, now, two roofs.

The Machines Can Think Summit wraps up today at Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi, drawing policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders to zero in on practical AI adoption and governance. Co-hosted by Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence and Polynome, the two-day forum ranged from national-scale AI infrastructure to climate and biotech applications, with a strong emphasis on responsible deployment frameworks.

WEATHER- The chilly, breezy weather continues today, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi seeing a high of 23°C and the former seeing a low of 16°C, and the capital seeing a low of 15°C.

Happening this week

Abu Dhabi is hosting the International Bar Association’s Annual Arbitration Day Conference on Wednesday and Thursday at the Rosewood Abu Dhabi. Law professionals and international industry players will meet for panel discussions on trends in the arbitration practice globally.

Plus: The World Customs Organization’s Technology Conference is on from Wednesday to Friday at the Adnec Center Abu Dhabi.

Our fellow photo nerds in the UAE will want to circle 29 January to 4 February on their calendars. This year’s Xposure, the global celebration of visual storytelling, features a who’s who of talented photographers — including our friend Romany Hafez, whose haunting analog work explores memory, presence, and sacred spaces. Romany will be giving a talk on Saturday, 31 January headlined Between Memory and Light. Don’t miss it if you love black and white photography as much as we do.

Watch this space

ENERGY — XRG doubles down on US LNG: Adnoc’s international investment arm will raise its stake in NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG facility by buying an additional 7.6% in trains four and five through Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), the acquisition vehicle under BlackRock, according to a statement. Each train is expected to produce around 6 mtpa, and both are already locked into long-term offtake agreements.

The move fulfills an option to buy into the fourth and fifth trains from the earlier agreement, which had seen XRG pick up an indirect 11.7% stake in the project’s first phase — comprising the first three liquefaction trains — via GIP. It had also secured a 20-year, 1.9 mtpa offtake from train four.

XRG aims to expand its US assets with a focus on bolstering gas and LNG capacity, and was eyeing some USD 9 bn worth of acquisitions of natural gas assets. Doubling down on LNG across the Atlantic, XRG was also exploring joining YPF and Italy’s Eni on a liquefied natural gas project in Argentina.

DATA CENTERS — Sharjah advances in the data race: Sharjah is eyeing more data infrastructure after a tripartite MoU was signed to explore building and operating data centers in the emirate, Wam reports. The pact links the Sharjah Communications Technology Authority (SCTA) with China’s DataCanvas International and AI Caravan to assess feasibility.

Why it matters: This puts Sharjah on a clearer path to becoming a data and AI hub alongside Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The move builds on groundwork laid in 2024, when Beeah Group, Khazna Data Centers, and SCTA agreed to develop the emirate’s largest Tier III facility at the Sharjah Freezone for Communication Technologies in Kalba, with additional sites planned across the emirate. Elsewhere, UAE-based XDS was commissioning a 1 MW data facility in Sharjah as of last summer, and Ajman is also seeing some of the action, with Khazna Data Centers working to complete its 100 MW QAJ1 facility this December.

MORE DATA CENTERS — Stargate UAE gets a price tag: Abu Dhabi’s flagship 5GW Stargate UAE data center will cost USD 30 bn to develop, The National cites AI Minister Omar Al Olama as saying at the Machines Can Think summit. The revised figure is roughly 50% higher than last year’s USD 20 bn estimate, reflecting the scale and cost of sovereign AI infrastructure.

REMEMBER- Stargate is coming sooner: We reported earlier that G42’s buildout is accelerating, with the first 200 MW due online “in the next couple of months,” followed by 200-500 MW per quarter, alongside incoming advanced US chips under security guardrails — pulling timelines forward from earlier guidance that pointed to 3Q 2026.

ENERGY — Dubai-based Mark Cables Power Solutions completed construction on a USD 213 mn, 200 MW thermal power plant in Burkina Faso in six months, backing efforts to stabilize the country’s supply and cut reliance on imported power — in a market where only around a fifth of the population has electricity access and imports from coastal neighbors still plug the gap, Reuters reports.

The UAE has been deepening ties with Burkina Faso, including an agreement with Presight to advance the country’s digital transformation and military equipment talks.

DEBT — The UAE is issuing AED 550 mn in T-bonds with a 2031 maturity today, according to an Emirates NBD research note (pdf). The move is part of a broader strategy to raise AED 2.75 bn by the end of the year.

IN CONTEXT- The move follows a week where GCC credit markets remained remarkably resilient despite a rapid sell-off in Japanese and US government bonds, leaving regional markets momentarily oversupplied as global yields spike.

Data point

3k+ aircraft — that’s the cumulative order backlog held by the UAE, India, and Saudi Arabia with Airbus and Boeing, more than double the size of their current fleets, according to a statement from Avolon. Around 900 deliveries are expected over the next three years.

The global scene: While the aviation sector’s prospects are looking promising, thanks to persistent low fuel prices and growth from markets like the US, Europe, the Gulf, and India, a chronic undersupply of aircraft is weighing on the outlook. Airbus and Boeing’s total backlog now stands at more than 11 years, as the two — along with Embraer — saw 2k new orders last year. Going forward, the aircraft shortage is expected to lead to higher lease rates.

Still, the sector’s earnings are set to come in at USD 41 bn this year, which would make it the fourth year of gains as it looks to recover USD 182 bn in pandemic-induced losses.

PSA

Heads up, renters and landlords — Ajman is revamping how rental disputes are handled: The emirate has approved a new law establishing a Rental Dispute Resolution Center, replacing the existing committee and centralizing landlord-tenant cases across Ajman, including in freezones, Wam reports.

The center aims to streamline adjudication of disputes, issue rulings, clarify appeal routes, and strengthen juridical certainty as part of Ajman’s push to tighten real-estate governance and bolster investor confidence.

The big story abroad

It’s a mixed bag in the foreign business press this morning, with the USD’s slide, gas prices, and Trump’s latest tariff announcement all making headlines.

#1- Trump to hike tariffs on Seoul: US President Donald Trump announced he is hiking tariffs on South Korean autos, lumber, and pharma from 15% to 25%, blaming the country’s legislature for not implementing a trade agreement reached last November. The move strains Washington’s relationship with a major trade partner, as South Korea ranks among the top 10 sources of imports to the US, with over USD 150 bn worth of Korean goods heading to the US every year.

#2- The USD dipped to its lowest point since 2022 amid speculation about joint US-Japan efforts to boost the JPY, which jumped to a two-month high. Adding to pressure on the greenback are worries of another government shutdown and geopolitical tension pushing investors away from the currency and into safe haven assets.

#3- Musk’s X is in hot water with the EU: The European Union is investigating Elon Musk’s X following the generation of explicit images of women and children by its in-app AI chatbot Grok. The probe will ascertain whether or not the company properly mitigated risks of its chatbot’s functionalities in the bloc.

#4- US natural gas prices have soared to a three-year high after a major winter storm disrupted production across the country.

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Market watch

Opec+ is set to keep its pause on oil output increases through March at a meeting on Sunday, delegates told Reuters. The alliance froze planned hikes after a rapid unwinding of production cuts through last year — effectively holding supply flat for 1Q.

The expectation within the group is that policy stays unchanged, though some members caution that discussions have yet to formally begin, four delegates told Bloomberg. There is no sense so far that this month’s turbulence in Venezuela or Iran requires a response, one source said, while another flagged the caveat — a serious supply disruption could change the math fast and push Opec+ to open the taps.

IN CONTEXT- Brent prices peaked at around USD 66 / bbl this month, up from year-start lows on the back of supply setbacks in Kazakhstan.

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