Background on Anthropic
Founded in 2021 by ex-OpenAI and siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, Anthropic is an AI safety and research company and widely regarded to be at the forefront of the AI race. The Amodei siblings disagreed with the direction of OpenAI, and decided to create Anthropic in order to prioritize building reliable and steerable AI systems. Not long after, Anthropic came out with Claude, an LLM designed to be as powerful as ChatGPT while being more ethical through the use of Constitutional AI. This novel approach involves training AI on a set of principles, or a “constitution”, derived from various human rights doctrines and ethical guidelines. Claude was a huge success—it proved that AI can still be powerful while prioritizing human rights and not succumbing to the pressures of commercialization. Its early success paved the way for a series of rapid-fire updates that refined Claude’s capabilities and cemented its position as one of the most advanced ethical large language models on the market.
So when Anthropic announced their intent to seek investment from Gulf state funds, it raised eyebrows among those who had praised the company for its ethical stance.
Gulf States’ Growing AI Ambitions
The Gulf States, which primarily refers to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, didn’t just suddenly gain interest in the AI race. Once considered to be oil-dependent economies, the states have recognized the long-term limitations of petroleum and the high potential of AI technology. As artificial intelligence revolutionizes various sectors including healthcare, finance, and manufacturing, it isn’t surprising that investors are flocking to get a piece of the cake. Projections are already through the roof—AI is said to contribute to 12% of the Middle East’s GDP by 2030, while the sector itself is growing at an annual rate of 29% (CNN 2024)
But it is much more than an economic investment—-the Gulf has realized that whoever controls AI wields national power and influence over the future. Gaining access to more advanced models, foundational research, and complex infrastructure isn’t just about profit margins; it’s about positioning themselves as global leaders in the incoming industrial revolution. By investing in companies like Anthropic, the Gulf States hope to cement themselves as a global tech axis while reducing their dependencies on Western innovation. This means developing homegrown AI systems such as Saudi Arabia’s NEOM Tech & Digital and Abu Dhabi’s G42 (Bloomberg 2024). For the Gulf States, AI is a new pillar of international relevance and power.
For the sake of Anthropic, however, this potential investment is double-edged. Major Gulf State powers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been heavily criticized for surveillance, lack of press freedom, and crackdowns on dissent. Some common examples in recent years have been installing Pegasus spyware in journalists and politicians' phones in order to increase surveillance (The Washington Post 2021). Partnering with these regimes could spell the end of the AI safety and ethical values that Anthropic has fought so hard to uphold.
Why Anthropic is pursuing Gulf Capital
They don’t have a choice.
In order to continue standing at the forefront of AI with tech companies like OpenAI and DeepSeek, Anthropic needs more funding in order to make larger strides. OpenAI has already announced their $500 billion data center, while companies like Meta have been poaching AI researchers in order to make the next “superintelligence”. Anthropic will not be able to keep up unless they get more money. As CEO Dario Amodei aptly put it, “Unfortunately, I think ‘No bad person should ever benefit from our success’ is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on.” (WIRED 2025). Anthropic is in the face of an ironic dilemma—They must seek unethical resources in order to create more ethical AI.
As Anthropic looks to investors in the Gulf, it raises questions about how the company will stay true to its values while taking money from places with different views on ethics and freedom.