February 2026 showed a system still moving, but through narrower gates where continuity depended less on possession and more on clearance, sequencing, infrastructure, and delay tolerance.
Gulf Compute: Why Saudi Arabia and the UAE Matter in the New Permissioned AI Order
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are making a serious bid to turn capital, energy, and infrastructure into frontier AI compute capacity. The key question is whether Gulf states can become true compute powers or remain hosted extensions of the U.S.-led AI system.