NEW DELHI / ABU DHABI — India and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to jointly develop a national-scale artificial intelligence supercomputer capable of 8 exaflops of compute power, officials said, marking a major milestone in bilateral technology cooperation.
The project — unveiled at the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi — brings together Abu Dhabi-based technology group G42, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), US AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems, and India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to deliver one of the most powerful AI compute facilities hosted in India.
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8 Exaflops Compute Power for India’s AI Ambitions
An exaflop measures a system’s ability to perform a quintillion (10¹⁸) calculations per second. At 8 exaflops, the new supercomputer will vastly expand India’s capacity to train and run advanced AI models, including applications in areas such as healthcare, agriculture, education and public services.
Officials say the system will play a key role in supporting India’s AI Mission by providing high-end compute resources for researchers, startups, government ministries and small and medium enterprises.
Hosted in India Under Indian Governance
Unlike many foreign-operated facilities, the supercomputer will be physically located in India and operate under India-defined governance frameworks, with all data processed on the system remaining within the country’s jurisdiction to ensure sovereign control and compliance with national data security regulations.
Manu Jain, CEO of G42 India, emphasized the importance of sovereign computing infrastructure for economic growth and innovation, noting that the system will enable Indian researchers and enterprises to build advanced AI tools while maintaining full control over their data.
Consortium and Roles
The collaborative technology consortium includes:
- G42 (Abu Dhabi) – lead delivery and integration of the supercomputing infrastructure.
- Cerebras Systems (U.S.) – providing high-performance AI hardware and processing systems.
- MBZUAI (UAE) – academic and research partner.
- C-DAC (India) – Indian host agency responsible for on-ground deployment and governance.
The partnership builds on a broader India-UAE technology dialogue and follows recent high-level engagements between the two countries, including strategic meetings on technology cooperation and AI governance.
Access and Intended Use
Once operational, access to the supercomputer will be made available to universities, research institutions, startups, SMEs and government departments to lower barriers to advanced AI development and accelerate research across sectors.
Cerebras executives noted that their technology has powered large AI systems in the United States and that deploying similar capabilities in India is expected to significantly speed up the training of large-scale AI models tailored to local needs.
Deployment Details Pending
While the announcement confirms the project’s launch, specific timelines for deployment and operational rollout have not yet been released. Officials said further details on phased access and infrastructure build-out will be shared as the project advances.
