The export of vast quantities of AI chips is under negotiation, along with the approval of a new Saudi mining company that would send critical minerals to the U.S.

President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on Monday in Maryland on his way to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Trump administration aims to authorize the sale of hundreds of thousands of artificial intelligence chips to two government-connected firms in the Middle East, in an attempt to create a bulwark against China that helps the region become an AI powerhouse in its own right.

The agreements, which could be finalized during President Donald Trump’s trip to the region, would enable G42, the national AI champion of the United Arab Emirates, and the newly announced Saudi AI company Humain, to access U.S.-made AI chips, said two people familiar with the negotiations, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Some of the chips would flow through a new partnership between the UAE company and OpenAI, said a third person, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. Others could go directly to G42. The deals were first reported by the New York Times. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

The Trump administration has also approved a memorandum of understanding worth $9 billion between a U.S. company and Saudi partners to mine and process critical minerals used in advanced manufacturing, energy and defense, said Shahal Khan, founder and CEO of Burkhan World Investments, the U.S. firm that is one of the parties in the deal. According to documents obtained by The Washington Post, under the terms of the agreement, a Saudi company, Grand Mines Mining LLC, will prospect for lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, such as Africa, which can be exported to the United States.

Permitting the export of high volumes of powerful semiconductor chips — critical components of AI data centers as well as advanced manufacturing and AI-enabled weaponry — represents a break from U.S. foreign policy. The Biden administration limited the sales of such chips to both countries, out of concern over their strong connections to China and authoritarian governments.

The U.S. previously allowed such chips to be exported at a slower place and had put in place a plan to audit data centers in stages and other restrictions.

The sheer petroleum-generated wealth of the region and ample access to electrical power there has in recent years spawned mutual interest for collaboration between governments and Silicon Valley AI companies. The U.S. government has approved some of these deals, sometimes with provisions. One signed last year between Microsoft and G42, with the cooperation of the U.S. and UAE governments, mandated that G42 remove all its equipment made by China’s biggest competitor in the sector, Huawei, among other restrictions.

The Trump administration, according to one of the people familiar with the matter, believes that moving chip sales along more quickly will benefit U.S. interests, both by tying the region closer to the U.S. and by helping to advance American business.

The new pace of chip sales will turbocharge the AI capabilities of these countries, giving them a huge leg up in the global AI arms race. That could one day enable them to compete with the U.S., said Sam Winter-Levy, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who writes about technology and geopolitics.

“We essentially spent the last half-century trying to reduce the leverage of these states over the U.S. because of their control of the oil supply. Why would we recreate that dependency?” he said. “You are offshoring a core strategic technology — computing power — while creating new sources of dependence on authoritarian regimes with close ties to the Chinese and the Russians.”

Key tech leaders are in the region this week, including Trump’s AI czar, David Sacks, Cerebras Systems CEO Andrew Feldman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and billionaire Trump donor and adviser Elon Musk, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Since taking office, the administration has brokered major investments in U.S. data center infrastructure from Saudi and UAE companies. The high cost of building and maintaining data centers has led many Silicon Valley companies to seek financing in the Middle East in recent years, and building up capacity in the region is often a condition of that investment.

Winter-Levy said he supports exporting AI technologies but said the Trump administration was not being strategic in doing so.

“This is an administration that prides itself on using U.S. leverage to the max and driving a hard bargain, but this deal seems to be shaping up to be a giveaway of a core strategic technology in exchange for pretty short-term and superficial concession,” he said.