UAE: Using Its Wealth Fund For Investment…and Diplomacy
April 26th, 2024
Courtesy of The Economist, a report on the UAE’s use of its wealth fund to place global investments and gain diplomatic influence: Sovereign wealth funds seldom worry about foreign policy. Those that invest abroad typically do so in order to ensure stable returns or diversify holdings, meaning they tend to hold Treasuries and Western stocks. Many […]
Read more »Gulf States And Central Asian Republics
April 23rd, 2024
Via Eurasia Review, an article on growing linkages between the Gulf states and Central Asia: Trade, transit and energy topped the agenda when foreign ministers from the GCC and Central Asian republics met in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, last week for their second “strategic dialogue”, following an inaugural event in Jeddah last July. The six Gulf states […]
Read more »Microsoft: Riding On Geopolitics To Extend Its AI Footprint
April 19th, 2024
Via Fast Company, commentary on Microsoft’s recent $1.5B investment in the UAE’s G42: Microsoft’s recently announced deal to acquire a $1.5 billion share of United Arab Emirates-based AI company G42 is the culmination of months of coordination and negotiation among the companies and their respective governments. G42 will now begin getting computing power from Microsoft’s Azure data […]
Read more »Race for AI Supremacy in Middle East Is Measured in Data Centers
April 11th, 2024
Courtesy of Bloomberg, a look at how Saudi Arabia and the UAE are rushing to build infrastructure as they vie to become the regional tech superpower: One of the best places to view the Gulf states’ unfolding rivalry over artificial intelligence is inside an unmarked building in an industrial park near a golf course on […]
Read more »Turning Camels into Cows: Middle East Megafarms Set Up To Produce Camel Milk on Industrial Scale
April 7th, 2024
Via The Conversation, a report on efforts to set up megafarms in the Middle East to produce camel milk: The camel may be the next cow. An animal that once grazed and browsed over huge distances is increasingly being enclosed in vast Middle Eastern dairy farms, where thousands of camels are milked by machine. This […]
Read more »Gulf States: Putting Their Money Into Mining
April 1st, 2024
Courtesy of The Financial Times, an article on the Gulf states’ investment interest in mining: In the summer of 2023, Rothschild bankers working for Zambia’s government were close to finalising a shortlist of buyers for a prized copper mine. Mopani, a troubled but rare asset formerly owned by resources giant Glencore, had drawn offers worth […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.