UAE to deploy 8 exaflop AI supercomputer in India
National-scale supercomputer to be delivered by G42, Cerebras and MBZUAI
#UAE #India #supercomputers – Abu Dhabi will build a national-scale AI supercomputer in India with 8 exaFLOPs of compute capacity, delivered by Abu Dhabi’s AI powerhouse G42 and US AI infrastructure company Cerebras, in partnership with Abu Dhabi research university Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). The landmark project, announced on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, will mark a transition to exaflop-scale AI infrastructure in India whilst expanding the country’s domestic compute capabilities for advanced AI development. Hosted in India, the system will operate under national governance frameworks with all data remaining within national jurisdiction, designed to meet sovereign security and compliance requirements whilst serving as foundational asset under the India AI Mission.
SO WHAT? – Originally announced in 2024, the supercomputer deployment is a continuation of initiatives agreed in a bilateral agreement between India and the UAE, which specifies AI infrastructure. The new 8 exaflop supercomputer will address India’s challenge of building sovereign AI infrastructure at national scale, enabling local researchers, innovators and enterprises to become AI-native. The new system will allow India to maintain full data sovereignty and security rather than relying on foreign cloud services where data governance and access remain outside national jurisdiction. Sovereign AI infrastructure is becoming increasingly essential for national competitiveness, enabling countries to build, deploy and scale AI securely within their own borders.
Here are some key facts about the supercomputer announcement:
Abu Dhabi will build an 8 Exaflop AI supercomputer in India, delivered by G42 and US AI infrastructure company Cerebras, in partnership with Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). No timeframe for the deployment was announced.
The supercomputer announcement took place during Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s attendance at the AI Impact Summit on behalf of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, with the UAE delegation including Minister of State for AI Omar Sultan Al Olama, Presidential Adviser Faisal Al Bannai and Executive Affairs Authority Chairman H.E. Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, reflecting the strategic importance of UAE-India AI cooperation at highest government levels.
At 8 exaflops, the new system represents a significant increase in peak compute capacity, marking a transition to exaflop-scale AI infrastructure in India and expanding the country’s domestic compute capabilities for advanced AI development under sovereign governance.
Once operational, the India supercomputer will be accessible to the nation’s diverse ecosystem from premier institutions to start-ups, small and medium enterprises and government ministries, with democratised access model designed to lower barriers to AI innovation.
In December 2025, G42 and MBZUAI released the latest version of open-source Hindi-English large language model NANDA 87B featuring 87 billion parameters, demonstrating commitment to supporting India’s domestic AI capability development.
Cerebras and G42 have successfully deployed a network of Condor Galaxy supercomputers in the United States, rolling out a network purpose-built for processing AI workloads at scale.
Cerebras Systems’ flagship Wafer Scale Engine 3 is the world’s largest and fastest AI processor, 56 times larger than the largest GPU whilst using a fraction of power per unit compute and delivering inference and training more than 20 times faster than competition.
ZOOM OUT - In February 2024, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology signed a bilateral agreement with the UAE's Ministry of Investment during the official Emirates visit by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. Setting out terms for UAE investment in India's digital infrastructure, the agreement includes the building of a data centre with an initial capacity of up to 2 GW, the deployment of a 8 exaflop supercomputer and bilateral R&D collaboration on developing AI models. The UAE also promised to deliver a national large language model, which it launched at the 2024 UAE-India Business Forum. In December 2025, MBZUA and Inception announced Nanda 87B, an upgraded version of the original Hindi-English LLM.
This week’s announcement confirming the supercomputer project follows the 5th India-UAE Strategic Dialogue held in December 2025 and the visit of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to India in January 2026, solidifying comprehensive partnership framework across defence, technology, space and energy.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Read more about NANDA and UAE-India digital collaboration:
Gulf states head to India AI Impact Summit 2026 (Middle East AI News)
MBZUAI, Inception launch enhanced Nanda Hindi LLM (Middle East AI News)
MBZUAI open-sources NANDA LLM (Middle East AI News)
G42 to deploy 2GW data centre and supercomputer in India (Middle East AI News)
G42 launches new Hindi LLM in Mumbai (Middle East AI News)