Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan

Spear’s Review

Even by the standards of the Gulf, the rapid rise of Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan – the Abu Dhabi security chief turned trillion-dollar money man – has been remarkable.

One of 19 sons of UAE founder Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the sheikh was officially confirmed as Abu Dhabi’s deputy ruler in 2023, shortly after his brother, Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, became the UAE’s third president. However, the most important source of Sheikh Tahnoon’s power is his brother’s decision to bestow upon him a much more modern position: control over Abu Dhabi’s gargantuan sovereign wealth fund.

With more than $1 trillion under management, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) ranks among the largest state-owned funds in the world. 

As well as overseeing the ADIA, Sheikh Tahnoon also chairs a number of other financial institutions, including the UAE’s largest bank (First Abu Dhabi Bank), the biggest entity on the Abu Dhabi bourse (International Holding Company) and the state-run AI venture known as Group 42 (G42). Such unprecedented influence over one of the Middle East’s largest capital markets would be a story in its own right. Yet Sheikh Tahnoon has done something interesting with his positions, harnessing them to further the UAE’s ambition to become an active player, rather than just a major investor, in the AI revolution.

Initial work is well underway: G42 is already partnering with OpenAI to build a new UAE-based supercomputer, enabled, in no small part, by the clusters of data centres popping up across the Emirates. The $4 trillion chipmaker Nvidia has opened an AI and robotics research lab in Abu Dhabi, further proving the state’s commitment to technology investments. And in May 2025, the US and UAE signed an agreement to build the largest AI campus outside the US, one of the biggest deals made with President Trump during his tour of the Gulf states.

If the future of finance is in AI, Sheikh Tahnoon is in command.

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