OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's latest stop on his AI emperor roadshow was in the United Arab Emirates, where he pushed the idea of a global consortium of governments and private interests to fund, drive and power the artificial intelligence industry.

According to a report, Altman met with several Emirati officials and investors this week to discuss how they and others can work together to offset the extreme costs associated with AI infrastructure. Energy and semiconductor supply, plus data center capacity, were said to be on the agenda. Altman also reportedly met with Martina Strong, the US ambassador to the Emirates (UAE), during his visit.

In recent months, Altman has apparently sought billions of dollars from industry giants — including Abu Dhabi-based G42, Japan's Softbank, Microsoft and others — to build a network of chip factories dedicated to making silicon for machine learning.

It now appears that these talks were not just about bolstering the supply of the AI accelerators that power OpenAI and others' models. Faster growth in data center capacity and alternative power sources – including nuclear power – were also on the agenda. The latter is not so surprising – Altman is a big fan of nuclear energy, having previously thrown his weight behind small modular reactor startup Oklo and fusion hopeful Helion Energy.