Mubadala partners with Together AI, which opens Abu Dhabi office

Summary

• Mubadala and Together AI announced a partnership to explore AI infrastructure opportunities across the UAE.
• Together AI will set up a local Abu Dhabi presence, moving inference and research capabilities closer to regional developers.
• The deal follows Mubadala's $100 million participation in Together AI's Series C round in July.

The latest

Together AI will establish a local presence in Abu Dhabi under a strategic partnership with Mubadala Investment Company announced on 29 September 2026, bringing its inference and research capabilities closer to regional demand. The two sides said they will jointly identify opportunities supporting AI development and deployment in the UAE. The agreement builds on Mubadala's $100 million investment in the San Francisco company three months earlier.

Details

• The structure: According to the announcement, the collaboration runs through the Mubadala UAE Investments Platform and is framed as exploratory — the two sides will identify strategic opportunities supporting AI development and deployment in the Emirates. No investment figure, timeline or project list was attached to the partnership itself.
• The prior investment: Mubadala said the collaboration follows its $100 million participation in Together AI's Series C round, announced on 1 July 2026 alongside global technology and financial investors. The fund did not name the other participants or disclose the company's valuation.
• The company: Together AI, founded in 2022 and headquartered in San Francisco, describes itself as an AI Native Cloud offering a full-stack platform for inference, model shaping and accelerated compute, built for developers and enterprises running applications on open-source and custom AI models.
• The scale: The company says it powers more than a million developers and some of the most demanding AI workloads globally. Mubadala manages a portfolio it values at $385 billion, equivalent to 1,414 billion dirhams, spread across six continents and multiple sectors and asset classes.
• Mubadala's framing: Ali Eid AlMheiri, Executive Director for Diversified Assets at Mubadala's UAE Investments Platform, said the fund focuses on attracting leading technology companies and moving innovation from research to application. He said the Abu Dhabi office would deepen Together AI's engagement with the UAE ecosystem and create long-term economic value.
• The compute argument: Together AI founder and CEO Vipul Ved Prakash said demand for open-source AI is outpacing available compute. He argued developers choose open models to own and shape them, but that this works only when the underlying infrastructure is fast, efficient and available, calling Mubadala a partner that helps the company scale at speed.
• The national goal: Mubadala tied the partnership to Abu Dhabi's ambition to build sovereign capabilities across the AI value chain and strengthen its position as an international hub for applied innovation, while deepening technical expertise inside the country.
• The wider portfolio: The fund presented the deal as part of its continued investment in technology infrastructure supporting the UAE's shift to a knowledge-based economy, with artificial intelligence positioned as a long-term driver of value rather than a single-cycle bet.

Background

Abu Dhabi has spent recent years channelling sovereign capital into artificial intelligence and the compute infrastructure beneath it, pairing foreign investments with local operations by technology firms. Mubadala's Series C stake in Together AI, taken in July, placed it among the company's investors before this partnership.

Between the lines

The announcement carries no capital commitment, no project and no timeline — the substance is an office and an intent to look for opportunities together. What makes it meaningful is sequencing: Mubadala put $100 million into the company first, then secured a local presence. Prakash's own argument, that open-source demand is outrunning available compute, explains why a sovereign investor with infrastructure ambitions is an attractive partner.

What's next

Watch for the Abu Dhabi office opening date, any specific infrastructure project emerging from the exploratory phase, and whether Mubadala converts the partnership into further capital beyond its July Series C stake.

Source: Mubadala Investment Company