Following the news that Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investment firm Mubadala will take a minority stake in Group42 (G42), the artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing company founded in the emirate in 2018;

Jennifer Aguinaldo, Energy & Technology Editor at MEED, part of GlobalData, offers her view:

“The integration of Mubadala-owned Injazat and Khazna into the rapidly expanding portfolio of G42 is perhaps inevitable. Given the breadth of services it intends to offer, G42 needs all the bandwidth Khazna and Injazat’s data infrastructure can offer – while strengthening the two firms’ cloud and managed security capabilities.

“The transaction also gives the Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund a minority stake in a company that will play an all-encompassing role in the country’s and the wider Arab region’s ongoing digital transition, with services targeting critical sectors such as energy, utilities, healthcare and smart cities.

“Investing in a sector that’s growth is expected to further accelerate due to COVID-19-related constraints is a sensible move, given dwindling oil and gas revenues, plummeting real estate prices and slow tourism receipts. G42 plays a key role in the UAE’s strategy to address the COVID-19 pandemic, having built the world’s largest COVID-19 testing facility outside China and initiated the Phase III clinical trial of a COVID-19 inactivated vaccine in the UAE.

“G42’s products and services offer an important nexus as nearly all sectors of the economy converge into shared or private digital platforms. Acquiring a stake in G42 is not an unexpected move for Mubadala, which began investing in technology-orientated entities in 2007.

“In addition to Injazat and Khazna, Mubadala’s technology portfolio includes Globalfoundries, an advanced semiconductor manufacturer; Al-Yah Satellite Company (Yahsat), which has three satellites in orbit; and a significant stake in Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (Du).”