OpenAI Expands UAE Data Residency with Local AI Inference

OpenAI  officially announces the availability of Inference Residency in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for eligible customers using the API, ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Edu. UAE Inference Residency helps enterprises, public-sector institutions and education providers adopt AI while aligning with local compliance, governance and operational needs.

This launch establishes the UAE as one of the only three locations worldwide – alongside the United States and Europe – where OpenAI supports inference residency, ensuring model inference runs on GPUs inside the country rather than simply storing data locally.

For eligible workspaces, GPU inference can now be constrained to UAE-based inference engines. This builds directly on UAE Data Residency at rest and represents another major step towards local compute residency.

AI adoption is accelerating across the UAE, driven by growing enterprise interest and supported by the government’s clear roadmap to an AI-native nation under its National AI Strategy 2031. Recent policy developments, including the establishment of the UAE’s Federal Authority for Artificial Intelligence and Data and evolving data-localization requirements for regulated sectors, increase the relevance of in-country AI processing for sensitive government, healthcare and financial workloads.

With UAE Inference Residency, customers can now keep GPU execution for prompts and responses in-region, giving them greater control over how AI workloads are run.

“Organizations across the UAE are adopting AI at a remarkable pace, supported by the Government’s clear long-term vision and commitment to technology leadership. With the launch of UAE Inference Residency, we are giving eligible customers greater control over where AI workloads are executed, building on our existing residency offerings and supporting institutions that need stronger regional assurances as they scale AI adoption. This is another important step toward broader compute residency in the UAE, and we look forward to continuing to support organizations across the public and private sectors as they build with AI.”

– Farouk El Hamzawi, Head of Enterprise, OpenAI MENA

In September last year, OpenAI announced UAE Data Residency. Now, UAE Inference Residency marks the next milestone in enabling institutions across the country to have the tools, security, and flexibility they need to adopt AI responsibly and at scale, all within the Emirates.