Good morning, lovely people. We have a very macro-heavy issue for you this morning, as ICAEW upgrades the UAE’s growth forecast for next year and Knight Frank and JLL both give their take on the UAE’s booming property markets — and the figures are all pointing to the same thing: Price growth is finally stabilizing in Dubai, and the five-year boom looks to be nearing its peak.

ALSO- Trading in Dubai opened nearly three hours late yesterday due to connectivity issues, with the opening session starting at 12:45pm, the Dubai Financial Market confirmed in a statement. The exchange kept its closing time unchanged despite the delayed start.

WEATHER- Dubai is in for a high of 30°C today and a low of 20°C, while Abu Dhabi is expected to see a 31°C high and a 21°C low.

WATCH THIS SPACE-

#1- Adnoc plans USD 150 bn capex through 2030: Adnoc’s board has signed off on a five-year spending plan holding capital expenditure at USD 150 bn, as the company pushes ahead with capacity growth at home and expands its international footprint, according to a statement.

XRG doubles in size as global expansion accelerates: Adnoc said its international investment arm, XRG — created about a year ago — has lifted its enterprise value to USD 151 bn from USD 80 bn. The unit now holds stakes in listed Adnoc companies worth more than USD 100 bn and is targeting a top-five global position in gas and petrochemicals while supplying energy to meet AI-era demand, Bloomberg reports.

Upstream growth remains the priority: Adnoc has set up a dedicated operating company for the Hail and Ghasha offshore concession and raised the project’s target to 1.8 bcf/d by 2030, up from 1.5 bcf/d. Oil capacity is on track to rise to 5 mn b/d from 4.85 mn b/d currently.

The caveat? With the UAE’s OPEC+ quota at just over 3.4 mn b/d for December, further increases will leave more spare capacity idle in the near term.

#2- Abu Dhabi-based asset manager Lunate is in discussions to invest USD 1 bn in the state’s AI firm MGX, Bloomberg quotes sources familiar with the matter as saying. The state AI giant is looking to raise USD 25 bn in funding to boost its AI investments. Meanwhile, the alternative investor is reportedly targeting a bigger haul for its 2026 fund launches, well above the USD 17 bn it raised for its flagship funds in 2024, Bloomberg reported in another story. It deployed USD 13.5 bn so far and sealed over 100 transactions, pushing its assets to around USD 115 bn.

MGX has a busy pipeline ahead: Its upcoming commitments include contributing to the initial USD 100 bn phase of the Stargate AI infrastructure fund, pledging USD 30-50 bn of initial investments in data centers in France, and backing GIP’s USD 30 bn AI infrastructure fund. It also recently fully acquired Texas-based Aligned Data Centers alongside BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners for USD 40 bn and invested in OpenAI as part of its latest secondary share sale.

#3- Oracle deploys MENA’s first Blackwell-powered supercluster in Abu Dhabi: American cloud infrastructure firm Oracle has launched an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) supercluster with more than 4k of Nvidia’s latest Blackwell-architecture GPUs in its Abu Dhabi cloud region, according to a press release. The deployment, which Oracle says is the first of its kind in the MENA region, gives government entities and regulated sectors access to high-density AI compute while keeping data in-country.

A closer look: The supercluster is designed to support sovereign AI workloads across smart government, energy, finance, healthcare, aviation, logistics, and telecoms. Oracle says the buildout will enable in-region training, inference, and R&D at scale.

ICYMI- The US recently gave the greenlight to the export of several USD bns worth of Nvidia chips to the UAE, and later to state AI firm G42 on the condition of “rigorous security and reporting requirements.” Oracle is also involved in the 5 GW UAE-US AI Campus, the first deployment of the USD 500 bn US Stargate initiative.

#4- Adia, GIC wrap up their Vantage investment: A wholly owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia) and an affiliate of Singaporean wealth fund GIC finalized their participation as lead investors in the USD 1.6 bn equity investment in data center developer Vantage Data Centers, according to a press release.

Where will the money go? A portion of the capital was used to finalize the acquisition of a 300+ MW hyperscale campus in Johor, Malaysia, from Mubadala-backed data center developer Yondr Group. The transaction expands Vantage’s regional platform to 1GW of operational and planned IT capacity across Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

REMEMBER- Both Adia and GIC are existing backers of Vantage, alongside alternative asset manager DigitalBridge Group. Adia acquired a 40% in DigitalBridge’s subsidiary Landmark Dividend back in April 2024.

#5- Mubadala, Uber seek regulatory greenlight on Getir Food sale: Uber has agreed on key elements of a possible acquisition of Mubadala’s controlling stake in Turkish delivery firm Getir’s food-delivery arm, and has jointly filed for clearance with the Turkish Competition Authority, Reuters reports, citing two people familiar with the matter.

We knew this was coming: Earlier this month, Mubadala was in preliminary talks with Uber to possibly take over the Turkish firm. At the time, reports cited the value of the potential acquisition at as much as USD 1 bn. The sale would come following the recent sale of Getir Arac to Tiktak and parallel talks to offload the remaining stake in Getir’s finance unit. The Abu Dhabi fund took control of Getir’s assets earlier this year after the company’s pandemic-era surge and subsequent collapse in demand forced a restructuring and shutdown of its international operations, and led to a power struggle between Mubadala and Getir’s founders.

DATA POINT-

Gross bank assets rose to AED 5.2 tn at the end of September, up 2.2% m-o-m, according to the Central Bank of the UAE’s latest monetary and banking developments report (pdf). Gross credit increased 2.5% to AED 2.5 tn, supported by a AED 43.9 bn increase in domestic credit and AED 17.6 bn in foreign credit. Within domestic credit, lending grew across all segments: the government sector (+0.4%), government-related entities (+7.2%), the private sector (+1.5%), and non-banking financial institutions (+9.1%).

Total bank deposits rose 1.8% m-o-m to AED 3.1 tn, driven by a 0.7% increase in resident deposits to AED 2.9 tn and a 14.5% jump in non-resident deposits to AED 294.6 bn. Among resident deposits, private sector deposits grew 0.7% and non-banking financial institutions rose 13.8%, while government sector deposits fell 0.5% and deposits from government-related entities slipped 0.1%.

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HAPPENING TODAY-

#1- A Dubai Chambers of Commerce delegation is in Malaysia and Cambodia until Friday, 28 November to explore investment and potential partnerships for Dubai companies, state news agency Wam reports. The mission includes meetings with government bodies, major companies, and one-on-one business sessions to build long-term trade and investment ties. Delegates will study local investment environments and prospects to potentially expand to those markets to support export and re-export growth.

#2- The Big 5 Global Exhibition is on its second day and runs until Thursday at Dubai World Trade Center. The four-day event convenes construction leaders and policymakers in the urban development ecosystem. Over 2.8k industry suppliers will be at the event, which will focus on advanced technologies and collaboration on infrastructure innovation.

#3- LiveableCities X is also taking place until Thursday at Dubai World Trade Center. The event brings together international city planners, policymakers, and urban planners to discuss the latest technologies and solutions for sustainable and smart urban environments.

HAPPENING THIS WEEK-

#1- Dubai Silicon Oasis will host the Doers Summit tomorrow and on Thursday at Dubai Digital Park, bringing together founders, operators, investors, and technology players for panels, workshops, and startup showcases focused on scaling companies and building digital products. The agenda will focus on AI, fintech, engineering, and venture building, with hands-on sessions for early-stage founders.

#2- Date with Tech runs from Wednesday to Thursday in Dubai’s Madinat Jumeirah. The event — a new summit covering AI, digital assets, cybersecurity, immersive tech, and smart infrastructure — spotlights the region’s fast-growing tech sector, from a projected USD 166 bn AI market by 2030 to rising data-center and digital-transformation investment, and serves as a platform for next-gen technology partnerships.

#3- The DFSA-HKMA Joint Climate Finance Conference is happening tomorrow at the DIFC Conference Center. Co-hosted by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the event brings together regulators, global investors, and financial institutions to explore sustainable finance solutions and deepen bilateral collaboration. Key topics include scaling climate finance through tokenization and technology.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD-

US markets started the week in a sea of green, buoyed by increased odds of a December rate cut that took investors’ minds off AI bubble fears. The Nasdaq rose 2.69% — its best day since May — on strong Alphabet and Nvidia gains, while the Dow was up 0.44% yesterday and the S&P 500 inched up 1.55%. (Reuters | CNBC)

Not everyone is bullish: The “Big Short” investor Michael Burry used the first post in his newly launched paid-subscription newsletter Cassandra Unchained to warn that AI’s inflated valuations could be leading to a dot-com-like bubble down the road. Burry has reportedly placed a USD 1.1 bn wager against AI’s poster children Nvidia and Palantir.

  • What he said: "The five public horsemen of today's AI boom — Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon and Oracle — are joined by several adolescent startups in promising nearly USD 3 tn in spending on AI infrastructure over the next 3 years. [...] And once again there is a Cisco at the center of it all, with the picks and shovels for all and the expansive vision to go with it. Its name is Nvidia.” (Reuters | CNBC | Bloomberg)

ALSO- US domestic politics are taking center stage: Headlines are dominated by a federal judge‘s dismissal of indictments against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, the latest judicial rebuke for the Trump administration’s attempts to resort to the criminal justice system to target opponents. (CNN | Washington Post | NY Times | Associated Press)

ALSO WORTH READING THIS MORNING-

  • Another escalation against Venezuela saw the US formally designate President Nicolás Maduro and close allies as members of a foreign terrorist organization. (Reuters)
  • CNN unpacks why the crypto market is crashing.

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