OpenAI now offers inference residency to UAE enterprise users
UAE first country market in MENA to have OpenAI data and inference residency
#UAE #datacentres - OpenAI has switched on inference residency in the UAE, making it the first market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu customers can keep model execution, not just data storage, entirely within national borders. The UAE joins the United States and Europe as the only three regions where OpenAI currently offers this. Inference residency requires UAE data residency to already be enabled, and it means prompts, files and conversations are processed exclusively on GPUs located inside the UAE, rather than just stored there.
SO WHAT? - Data residency tells a regulator where information sits at rest, while inference residency goes further and guarantees where the AI model actually does its thinking. The latter matters more for regulated sectors like finance, healthcare and government that need assurance the data processing itself never leaves the country. Being grouped with the US and EU rather than a broader rollout list suggests OpenAI sees the UAE as one of only a handful of markets with enough enterprise demand and infrastructure to justify dedicated in-country GPU capacity.
KEY POINTS:
OpenAI has switched on inference residency in the UAE, making it the first market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to offer both inference residency and data residency to ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu customers.
The US AI company announced that the UAE became a supported ChatGPT data residency region in November 2025, and has now announced live inference residency, meaning GPU model execution on customer content stays inside the UAE rather than being processed elsewhere.
Inference residency is available to eligible ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu customers, and requires UAE data residency to be enabled first, since it functions as an additional location guarantee rather than a standalone service.
Customer content covered by the residency guarantee includes conversations, uploaded files, Custom GPT content, ChatGPT Memory, Code Interpreter artefacts, image-generation inputs and outputs, and backups and replicas.
The guarantee has limits: CPU-based functions such as authentication, routing and analytics may still run globally, and data sent through third-party apps, MCP servers or web-search providers falls under those providers’ own residency terms rather than OpenAI’s.
UAE inference residency currently supports only OpenAI GPT-5.2, with several features unavailable for UAE-resident workspaces, including image generation, internal search, ChatGPT Work and Improved Memory, though standard saved memories and Advanced Voice remain available where supported.
The move follows OpenAI’s November 2025 data residency launch, when it revealed UAE organisations already using its technology. Names users of OpenAI’s data residency service included Abu Dhabi-based AI company G42 Group, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, Abu Dhabi property developer Aldar, Dubai-based fintech Tabby, and universities including Khalifa University, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), NYU Abu Dhabi and UAE University.
OpenAI said it tripled its UAE user base over the past year, with strong adoption skewed toward users aged 18 to 34.
Data residency remains free for ChatGPT Enterprise and Education customers, and OpenAI says it plans to expand inference residency to further regions over time.
ZOOM OUT - Inference residency is the latest in a series of OpenAI expansion announcements over the past year. In November 2025, OpenAI publically announced that its UAE data residency for enterprise and education customers was available in November 2025, revealing that its UAE user base had tripled over the prior year. The news followed the announcement of Stargate UAE in May 2025: a 1 gigawatt AI compute hub built in Abu Dhabi, and the first international deployment of the $500 billion Stargate Project. Data residency gave enterprises somewhere to store information locally; inference residency now gives them somewhere to process it.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: OpenAI
Read more about OpenAI in the Middle East:
OpenAI offers UAE data residency for enterprise customers (Middle East AI News)
Emirates partners with OpenAI for enterprise AI (Middle East AI News)
UAE AI Office launches AI leadership guide (Middle East AI News)
Sam Altman receives MBZUAI’s first honorary doctorate (Middle East AI News)
Tech leaders unite to build Stargate UAE AI hub (Middle East AI News)