Ex-G42 CAIO joins B Capital
Andrew Jackson most recently led Stargate UAE governance at G42
#Qatar #USA #corporate - Global multi-stage investment firm B Capital, which manages more than $8 billion in assets, has appointed Dr Andrew Jackson as General Partner and Chief AI Officer, based at its Doha office. Jackson joins from Abu Dhabi-based technology holding group G42, where he served as Chief AI Officer and most recently oversaw governance for Stargate UAE, part of a 5 Gigawatt AI infrastructure cluster which is expected to be the largest of its kind outside the US. In his new role, Jackson will lead B Capital’s global AI strategy across investment, portfolio management and operations, and provide technology leadership for AI-driven businesses the firm incubates.
SO WHAT? - A Chief AI Officer role at a venture firm is still fairly rare, and putting someone of Jackson’s stature in the seat, signals that B Capital wants AI to be both embedded in how it invests and what it invests in. Jackson will lead the firm’s global AI strategy, working across its investments to include due diligence and sourcing new opportunities. His appointment also bolsters the credentials of B Capital’s new regional office in Qatar, which it opened last year.
KEY POINTS:
B Capital has appointed Dr Andrew Jackson as General Partner and Chief AI Officer, based at the firm’s Doha office in The Pearl, Doha.
Jackson will lead B Capital’s global AI strategy, working across investment, portfolio management and operations teams to strengthen sourcing, diligence and founder support.
He joins from G42, the Abu Dhabi-based technology holding group, where he served as Chief AI Officer and worked on the partnership with OpenAI to develop country-specific AI strategies for the UAE.
At G42, Jackson oversaw governance for Stargate UAE, part of a UAE-US 5 Gigawatt AI infrastructure cluster that is expected to become the largest of its kind outside the United States.
He previously led Inception (now Inception42), a G42-owned AI lab that built what the company calls the most extensive family of Arabic-first open-source AI models in the MENA region.
Jackson also help found a Microsoft-backed regional Responsible AI Future Foundation focused on AI governance, and earlier in his career helped expand data analytics firm Palantir’s presence across the Middle East.
B Capital co-founder and co-CEO Raj Ganguly said Jackson’s technical and operating experience will strengthen how the firm identifies opportunities and supports portfolio companies.
B Capital opened its Doha office in 2025 as part of its global expansion, with plans to partner with sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).
BIO - Andrew Jackson has the past spent fifteen years shaping Abu Dhabi's AI ecosystem from the inside, helping turn the emirate into a global hub for AI development and financing.
Jackson joined what would later become G42 in 2015. He went on to help grow the Inception Institute of Artificial Intelligence (now Inception42), the AI lab that built Jais in 2023, one of the first Arabic-first foundation models, developed with Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and Cerebras. From there he moved to Core42 as Chief AI Officer, then taking on the Group Chief AI Officer role at G42 in May 2025.
That final stretch at G42 put him in charge of governance for one of the largest AI infrastructure projects in the world: the 5 Gigawatt UAE-US AI compute cluster announced during President Trump’s visit to the UAE in May 2025. To be built across 10 square miles and including OpenAI’s Stargate hub, the first phase of the project is expected to go live this year. Jackson helped co-found the Responsible AI Future Foundation, a partnership between G42 and Microsoft focused on AI governance, and represented G42 globally as a public advocate for responsible and ethical AI practices including at the UN General Assembly.
Before G42, Jackson worked at Palantir Technologies across the MENA region, built out the data and analytics function at Etihad Airways, and developed electronic trading systems at Susquehanna International Group in Dublin.
Jackson holds a PhD in Machine Learning from Trinity College Dublin, along with postgraduate study at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and MIT. He joined B Capital as General Partner and Chief AI Officer in May 2026, based out of the company’s new Doha office.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: B Capital