Abu Dhabi's MGX in Advanced Talks to Invest in Anthropic's $20 Billion Funding Round
February 11, 2026
Abu Dhabi's sovereign investment vehicle MGX is in advanced discussions to participate in a massive new funding round for artificial intelligence leader Anthropic, according to a Bloomberg report. The potential investment underscores the intensifying global race for AI supremacy and the pivotal role of capital-rich Middle Eastern funds in financing the sector's astronomical infrastructure and development costs. The talks involve MGX contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to Anthropic's latest capital raise, which is targeting over $20 billion. This round is expected to value the generative AI company, known for its Claude assistant, at approximately $350 billion. If completed, it would mark one of the largest private funding rounds in technology history. MGX is no stranger to Anthropic or the broader AI landscape. The state-owned fund was an investor in Anthropic last year and has also backed other industry heavyweights including OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI. Furthermore, MGX is a key financial partner in OpenAI's ambitious "Stargate" data center project and has supported Mistral AI's infrastructure plans in France. The fund's chairman, Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan—who is also the UAE's National Security Advisor—additionally chairs AI firm G42, which is involved in building a regional AI cluster. The scale of MGX's recent commitments highlights the vast capital requirements of modern AI. In a landmark deal last year, MGX partnered with asset manager BlackRock to acquire data center operator Aligned for a record $40 billion. Just last month, BlackRock announced it had raised $12.5 billion for an AI investment partnership backed by MGX, Microsoft, Nvidia, and xAI. MGX also recently took a 15 percent stake in the newly formed US entity of TikTok. For AI companies like Anthropic, accepting investment from state-backed funds represents a strategic, if contentious, compromise. In a leaked memo last year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei acknowledged that taking capital from Gulf states would enrich "dictators," but argued that the principle of "'No bad person should ever benefit from our success' is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on." The funding is seen as essential to compete in a market where building and operating AI models requires unprecedented financial resources. The involvement of sovereign wealth funds like MGX and the Qatar Investment Authority signals a profound shift in the geopolitics of technology. It positions the Middle East not just as a source of capital, but as a strategic stakeholder in the foundational companies and infrastructure that will shape the future of global AI, with significant implications for technology governance, data sovereignty, and economic influence in the coming decades. Source: datacenterdynamics
