00:00MGX has raised $49 billion for one of the biggest ever funds dedicated to artificial intelligence deals.
00:07The fundraiser propels the two-year-old Abu Dhabi firm into the ranks of the most consequential investors in the
00:14sector globally.
00:16With us and to discuss all these details is Bloomberg's Dinesh Neuer.
00:21Dinesh, I'm ecstatic to have you here, first of all.
00:23Thank you for having me.
00:24What is the significance of this MGX deal?
00:28It's hugely important, not just from a perspective of AI, but also for Abu Dhabi.
00:34If you ask me a few years back, where do you think one of the biggest AI funds would come
00:38from?
00:39It's thought Silicon Valley.
00:40But it's happening in Abu Dhabi, which is quite a significant development.
00:47And I think this fund is quite unique because this fund kind of invests across the AI spectrum,
00:53which from like infrastructure to software.
00:55So MGX has kind of shown in the last two years that it can invest across that whole spectrum, which
01:03is quite unique.
01:03I don't think there are many other funds which have a GP kind of model investing across AI spectrum and
01:11raising third-party capital for them.
01:13So third-party capital or Abu Dhabi funds raising money externally, is there a broader trend that we can see
01:21here?
01:22Yes, that's something we've been seeing for the last couple of years.
01:26I mean, Abu Dhabi is known as one of the biggest pools of capital globally.
01:30What has changed in the last, say, couple of years or more recently is that a lot of the Abu
01:36Dhabi entities are now thinking about raising money to invest globally.
01:42I mean, it kind of started with Mubadala Capital, which is probably the first entity from Abu Dhabi to go
01:47out and raise third-party capital.
01:50MGX is doing it at a scale which you've not seen before in Abu Dhabi.
01:53But there are also other entities, you know, think about LUNAID, which has ambitions to raise money externally.
01:59There's also a new firm called Aldar Capital, which is also looking to raise third-party capital, reinvest in real
02:04estate in Abu Dhabi.
02:05So it's kind of a good sign of, like, the evolution of capital markets and finance in Abu Dhabi that
02:10the fact that, you know, this Emirate, which is a huge exporter of capital, is also now looking at raising
02:16money from global investors.
02:17And just MGX specifically, how different does it operate from other AI players in the field?
02:24So a lot of the AI players, you know, either focus, you have a lot of infrastructure funds who form
02:30partnerships and they focus just on data centers.
02:32So MGX does that.
02:33And then you've got a lot of venture capital money going into AI, so just backing big companies like Anthropic,
02:39OpenAI, XAI, and MGX has invested in all these companies as well.
02:43So I think the quite unique thing is that it has a GP-led model, which means it needs to
02:48show returns to its investors and it needs to accept its investments.
02:51It operates like a private equity firm, which is focused purely on AI across all its different spectrums, which is
02:57what makes it unique.
02:58I don't think there are many funds who are kind of doing that at this kind of level, at least.
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