In February, Binance founder CZ and OpenAI founder Sam appeared at a private event in Abu Dhabi at the same time.

A magical force connects the two people together because they have a common investment institution - Abu Dhabi sovereign fund MGX.

On March 12, Binance announced that it had received a $2 billion investment from MGX.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan (hereinafter referred to as Tahnoon), Chairman of the Board of Directors of MGX, is the financial backer behind all of this.

Tahnoun has a "title" like the Dragon Mother: son of the founding father of the UAE, national security adviser of the UAE, deputy ruler of Abu Dhabi, younger brother of the UAE president, chairman of the sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), chairman of Royal Group, chairman of First Abu Dhabi Bank, the largest bank in the UAE, chairman of the sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Development Holding Company (ADQ), chairman of International Holding Company (IHC), and chairman of G42, the largest AI company in the Middle East.

The 56-year-old controls the UAE's purse strings, with assets worth $2 trillion.

This is not the first time Tahnon has invested in a cryptocurrency-related business.

Previously, Tahnoun's company IHC invested in Phoenix, a cryptocurrency group listed in Abu Dhabi. Its core business is Phoenix Miner, the world's largest Bitcoin mine, which has 7% of the computing power of the global Bitcoin network and operates a $650 million joint venture mine in Abu Dhabi with sovereign fund ADQ.

In addition, Phoenix also owns the exchange M2.com and crypto investment institution Cypher Capital. It is worth noting that Bill Qian, a Phoenix Group executive and chairman of Cypher Capital, is the former head of Binance Labs.

Tahnon is now not only the financier of the world's largest exchange and Bitcoin mine, but also the financier of the world's largest AI company. OpenAI, xAI and Anthropic are all included in his investment portfolio.

A businessman who has been in the Middle East for a long time told TechFlow that it was easy to identify Tahnoun because he always wore sunglasses, whether indoors or outdoors, because he was sensitive to light.

To meet Tahnoun, one must first interact with his trusted circle of confidants or have an affinity with his hobbies: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, cycling, video games, chess, and longevity (he claims to live to 150).

A lucky few can play chess aboard his superyacht, Maryah, in the sunshine of the Persian Gulf.

Cryptocurrency may be just an appetizer. Tahnoun is currently an avid believer in AI and is betting heavily on AI, but he is deeply involved in the game of confrontation between China and the United States. Even a powerful figure like Tahnoun has to take sides and choose between China and the United States.

Game Enthusiasts: From Chess to AI

Tahnoun was born in 1968, three years after his father, Zayed, founded the UAE. Tahnoun was favored since childhood because he was one of the six sons born to Zayed's favorite wife, Fatima, and was regarded as his main successor.

In the mid-1990s, Tahnon came to Southern California and entered a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training center in San Diego under the name "Ben". According to the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Eastern Europe website, he was relatively humble, often arriving earlier than others and helping to tidy up the venue. It was not until later that he revealed his true identity as a prince from Abu Dhabi.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu also became one of his lifelong passions, and he co-founded the ADCC Submission Fighting World Championship with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach Nelson in 1998. Filmmaker Bobby Razak is making a documentary about Tahnon, calling him "one of the founders of mixed martial arts" and "without him, this sport would not be what it is today."

In addition, Tahnoun is also a cycling enthusiast.

He converted a palace on the royal estate into a gym, sponsored the world's top cycling team, UAE Team Emirates, and cycled on an island near the presidential palace, which he transformed into a cycling paradise.

He has a special liking for ultra-light Colnago bicycles, and simply let a company acquire a majority stake in the Italian brand in 2020, demonstrating his financial ability to the fullest.

But perhaps Tahnon's greatest passion is chess.

In the mid-2000s, a small supercomputer in Abu Dhabi, Hydra, was given the title of the world's best chess player. It is a 64-bit supercomputer with a 3.06GHz Intel Xeon processor that can perform 200 million calculations per second and think about 40 moves.

Chrilly, Hydra's chief designer, called their boss the most passionate computer chess enthusiast, and mentioned: "This sponsor likes to play games with Hydra all day and all night."

This mysterious boss uses the alias zor_champ to participate in online chess competitions, forming a human-machine combination with Hydra, and often defeats his opponents with overwhelming advantages.

This mysterious boss is Tahnon.

At the end of 2017, Google's AlphaZero defeated the world's strongest chess player after only four hours of learning, far surpassing Hydra's performance, which shocked Tahnon and made him realize the potential of AI.

The following year (2018), he appointed former MicroStrategy CTO Xiao Peng as CEO and founded the artificial intelligence company G42.

If you are a science fiction fan, you should be able to understand the deep meaning of this. 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Here is a little easter egg. If you search for "the answer to life, the universe, and everything" on Google, the search result is 42.

G42 is known as the "Alibaba + Tencent in the Middle East" and is a leader in the field of AI in the UAE and the Middle East. G42 currently has artificial intelligence companies Core42, AIQ, Presight, healthcare companies M42 and Hayat Biotech, data center service provider Khazna, geospatial intelligence company Bayanat and other companies.

There are many Chinese people in the management of G42, such as G42 CEO Xiao Peng and Cong Hongbin, CEO of its biopharmaceutical company Hayat Biotech. The G42 Expansion Fund (42X Fund for short) established by it has an office in Shanghai, and recruited Hu Ningfeng, former vice president of JD Group and head of strategic investment department, to join the 42X Fund in 2023 as head of the China region.

 Photo: Xiao Peng

Power struggles and deals

Although Tahnoun, who won the uterus lottery, is a winner in life envied by countless people around the world, she still faced challenges in her life.

Zayed, the founding father of the UAE, had about twenty sons, among whom Tahnoun and his brother Mohamed belonged to the "Bani Fatima" group - the six sons born to Zayed's favorite wife Fatima.

After Zayed's death in 2004, Tahnoun's brother Khalifa became president of the UAE, while Mohammed, the eldest of the Bani Fatima brothers, was named crown prince.

In 2014, President Khalifa suffered a severe stroke and Mohammed took over state affairs, and the competition for the next crown prince began.

Tahnoun is the most compelling potential candidate as he insists that tradition should be maintained, with Zayed's sons continuing to rule as long as they are healthy and mentally alert.

Mohammed insisted that his son Khalid should be named crown prince.

In this regard, Tahnoun even presented evidence that Muhammad's strategy went against their father's wishes for his successor. This can't help but remind people of the many stories of uncles and nephews seizing power in Chinese history.

Ultimately, the struggle ended with negotiations and compromise, with the brothers reaching an agreement: Tahnoun gave up becoming crown prince in exchange for significant control over the country's economic assets.

In 2023, Tahnoun was named chairman of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the country's largest sovereign wealth fund. Weeks later, Khalid was named crown prince.

At this point, Tahnoun became the "CFO" of the UAE, in charge of the two largest sovereign wealth funds, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and Abu Dhabi Development Holding Company (ADQ), the UAE's largest bank, First Abu Dhabi Bank, and his huge business empire covering real estate, agriculture, healthcare, energy, industry, shipping, catering and retail.

According to the latest data from Global SWF, Tahnoun controls over $2 trillion in assets.

However, according to US media reports, people who have had contact with Abu Dhabi in recent years have consistently reported that Tahnoun's power has expanded significantly beyond the financial field. He is responsible for diplomatic contacts with Iran, Qatar and Israel, and has established connections with people in Trump's circle.

MGX participated in the $6 billion financing of Musk's xAI, and its asset management company Lunate invested an additional $1.5 billion in Affinity managed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Tahnoun's power is not only reflected in the control of wealth, but also extends to the fields of intelligence and technology. As national security adviser, he is in charge of the UAE's intelligence agencies and used them to establish G42 to deeply engage in artificial intelligence and biotechnology.

After ending the power dispute, Tahnon encountered a new challenge on the road to AI: geopolitical conflict.

AI and Geopolitics

Before 2023, G42 maintained close cooperation with Chinese technology giant Huawei, and a large number of senior Chinese executives were involved in the company's operations, which also made American hawks very dissatisfied.

"You have to choose a side," former U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said bluntly, and made it clear when they met in Washington in 2023: Investment is welcome, but you can't have it both ways.

In August 2023, the United States implemented significant restrictions limiting the export of Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) to the Middle East, and any company using Huawei technology was banned from receiving these exports.

Tahnon had to make a choice between the two.

In early 2024, G42 announced that it would cut ties with China and remove all Chinese-made technology. Even the Huawei routers in the G42 office were removed, and G42 also sold its shares in ByteDance.

In April 2024, Microsoft announced that it would invest $1.5 billion in G42 for a minority stake, and Microsoft President Brad Smith joined the G42 board of directors.

In the summer of 2024, Tahnoun embarked on a diplomatic tour of the United States, meeting with tech giants such as Musk, Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO), and Bezos (Amazon founder), and also held discussions at the White House with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and even President Biden.

On the other hand, in March 2024, Tahnon led the establishment of the investment institution MGX, cooperating with BlackRock, Microsoft and others to invest in the AI industry, or more precisely, in American AI.

Ahmed Yahia, CEO of MGX, said the company plans to invest 70% to 80% of its funds in the United States. MGX has invested heavily in OpenAI, Musk's xAI, and Amazon-backed Anthropic, and is one of the few supporters of the "Stargate" project initiated by SoftBank.

Those efforts paid off quickly. The U.S. has authorized Nvidia to sell GPUs to G42, and some of those processors are already in use in Abu Dhabi, including a large number of Nvidia H100s.

In this wave of global AI competition, Tahnon’s strategic shift is not just a business decision, but also a major bet on the country’s destiny.

When we look at the technological tussle between China and the United States, it is not difficult to find that whether it is technology giants, national leaders, or even royal family members who control trillions of assets, they are just participants in the torrent of history, each placing their own chips on an uncertain future.