G42 (company)

Group 42 Holding Ltd, doing business as G42, is an Emirati artificial intelligence (AI) development holding company founded in 2018 and based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It focuses on AI development in industries including government, healthcare, finance, oil and gas, aviation, and hospitality.

The company is chaired by Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan from the ruling family of the UAE. Its Chinese CEO has been leading Pegasus – a subsidiary of DarkMatter, an Emirati security firm, which received scrutiny over the hiring of former CIA and NSA officials to spy on Americans, dissidents, and political rivals.

G42 is a founding partner to MGX. UAE's International Holding Company set up a unit to manage Group 42's China-focused 42X Fund, which has stakes in Beijing's JD.com and ByteDance.

Group 42 was reportedly the sole registered shareholder of the spying app ToTok.

Governance

The company is chaired by the National Security Advisor of the UAE, Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also its controlling shareholder.[2][3]

Peng Xiao is the Group CEO,[4] former head of Emirati cybersecurity company DarkMatter Group.[5]

History and portfolio companies

G42 was founded in 2018 and is based in Abu Dhabi, UAE.[6] The company performs AI research and development on computer vision, machine learning, and natural language processing via its subsidiary, the Inception Institute of Artificial Intelligence (IIAI).[7]

In January 2020, G42 announced the acquisition of Bayanat for Mapping and Surveying Services LLC, an end-to-end provider of geospatial data products and services, to complement G42's satellite-based services.[8][9] In 2020, state-owned Mubadala Investment Company took a stake in the company, transferring ownership of two information technology companies, Injazat and Khazna, to G42.[10] The next year, American private equity firm Silver Lake invested $800 million for a minority stake.[11][12]

In December 2019, Group 42 announced signing an agreement of strategic partnership with Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company (ADDH) to establish a joint venture called Adalytyx.[13]

In June 2020, G42 partnered with Sinopharm for clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine and in March 2021, they decided to produce the vaccine in Abu Dhabi.[14]

In July 2020, G42 announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the two Israeli defense groups, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries to research and develop methods to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, which the Israeli subsidiary Elta confirmed.[15][16]

In July 2023, G42 agreed to pay around $100 million to purchase the first of potentially nine supercomputers from Cerebras to deploy its AI technology to create chatbots and analyze genomic and preventive care data. Each supercomputer is capable of 4 exaflops of computing.[17][18][19]

In October 2023, a partnership was announced with OpenAI, the AI research and deployment company responsible for ChatGPT.[14] In November 2023, G42 purchased a $100 million stake in ByteDance,[14] which was divested four months later as an attempt to reassure its U.S. partners.

In 2023, an investment unit, Lunate, was established under the International Holding Company to manage Group 42's China-focused 42X Fund, which has stakes in Beijing's JD.com and ByteDance. Lunate has over 160 employees, and is also overseen by Tahnoon bin Zayed. However, the establishment of a dedicated investment vehicle for China raised concerns around G42 and Peng Xiao's commitment to the US about divesting from China.[20][21]

In 2024, the Abu Dhabi government launched an investment firm specializing in AI technologies called MGX, with G42 and Mubadala as founding partners.[22]

In April 2024, Microsoft announced that it would invest $1.5 billion in G42. As part of the deal, Microsoft's president Brad Smith would join G42's board, and G42 said it would use the Microsoft Azure platform for its AI development and deployment.[23]

On May 22, 2025 G42 in collaboration with OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA, SoftBank Group and Cisco announced a partnership to build Stargate UAE.[24]

Controversies

As of 2019, Group 42 was reportedly the sole registered shareholder of ToTok, a free messaging, video, and voice-calling mobile application. The application was downloaded by users in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, North America, and Africa, within several months. The application was accused of being "used by the government of the United Arab Emirates to try to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who install it", in a New York Times exposé in December 2019.[25] Following the allegations, the application was removed by Apple and Google from their application stores. The CEO of G42 has been leading Pegasus – a subsidiary of DarkMatter, an Emirati security firm, which received scrutiny over the hiring of former CIA and NSA officials to spy on Americans, dissidents, and political rivals. The company denied having any connection with DarkMatter.[26][27]

US government scrutiny

In 2020, G42 was reported to have donated BGI Group's Chinese-made Covid testing kits to Nevada. US intelligence and security officials objected to these testing kits, raising concerns over privacy risks, in that the gene-sequencing machines of the BGI Group could misuse the patients’ DNA. As of 2020, G42 was also reportedly working with BGI on a project for collecting genetic data of UAE citizens to "generate the highest quality, most comprehensive genome data".[28][29]

On November 27, 2023, according to The New York Times, U.S. authorities were concerned that G42 might serve as a channel through which sophisticated U.S. technology has been diverted to Chinese companies or the government. Concerns were raised about the involvement of Huawei in building G42's technology infrastructure. Intelligence reports cautioned that G42's interactions with sanctioned Chinese enterprises such as BGI Group could serve as a means to transfer the genetic data of millions of Americans and other individuals to the Chinese government.[14][30] Following the report by The New York Times, Peng Xiao stated that G42 would phase out its use of Huawei equipment.[31]

In January 2024, United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party asked the United States Department of Commerce to impose export controls on G42 and 13 companies connected to it.[32] In response, G42 told the Financial Times in February 2024 that it had divested from all its investments in China.[33] In July 2024, U.S. representatives Michael McCaul and John Moolenaar asked the federal government for an intelligence assessment of G42's ties to the Chinese government and military as well as risks of intellectual property theft before a US$1.5 billion investment by Microsoft in G42 could advance.[34] The same month, the Select Committee accused UAE ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba of "personally intervening" to prevent it from meeting with representatives from G42.[35] Microsoft subsequently modified its investment in G42, allowing it more oversight.[36]

In May 2025, US president Donald Trump signed an agreement with G42 to build the largest artificial intelligence campus outside the United States in the UAE to counter Chinese influence. US President Biden's restrictions that blocked access to high end US chips to the UAE were also removed.[37] On July 16, 2025 The Wall Street Journal reported that some Trump officials were holding up efforts to finalize the agreement, proposing to cut off direct access of chips to G42. Slowing the deal has bothered some American officials including White House AI czar David O. Sacks.[38]

See also

• Finablr
• LocAI

External links