You probably would not guess that the biggest financial backer of China’s robot industry is a desert prince.

Based only on major publicly disclosed deals, he has already put $5 billion into robotics.

A person familiar with the matter said: “If you include undisclosed private placements and the shares they have accumulated, the figure should be around $7 billion.”

More importantly, he recently set up MGX, a giant fund dedicated to AI and robotics, with plans to deploy $100 billion.

China is one of its key investment targets.

That super backer is Sheikh Tahnoun, the most powerful prince in Abu Dhabi.

Who Is the Backer?

In August 2025, Wuji Capital signed a $1 billion strategic investment and cooperation agreement with UBTECH, electrifying China’s robotics industry.

CYVN Holdings also poured $3.3 billion into Nio.

Nio is an automaker, but CYVN and Nio set up an Abu Dhabi R&D center focused on autonomous driving and artificial intelligence.

Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund also participated in WeRide’s Series D round. The amount was not disclosed, but industry estimates put it at roughly $100 million to $200 million.

In August last year, Arabian Gulf Investment Group and Yinggang Capital signed a memorandum of understanding for a $500 million AI and robotics cooperation fund.

Together, these deals add up to nearly $5 billion.

Against today’s capital winter and geopolitical backdrop, $5 billion makes Abu Dhabi not only the “biggest backer,” but also the only “super transfusion pump” for China’s robotics and embodied AI sector.

Traditional dollar funds such as Sequoia and Hillhouse have shifted to RMB funds in China because of geopolitics, and their investment capacity has now shrunk by about 80%.

State-backed capital has plenty of money, but it is usually spread across different cities, and single checks are typically in the hundreds of millions of yuan. Very few can deploy $1 billion in cash in a single deal the way Abu Dhabi can.

In addition, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is a giant among China’s qualified foreign institutional investors, and it holds shares in many embodied AI companies.

As of disclosures in the third quarter of 2025, its public holdings included Ninebot, Hongfa, Sanhua Intelligent Controls and others.

What many people do not know is that among today’s RMB funds run by Sequoia, Hillhouse and others, “20% to 30% of newly committed capital also comes from Abu Dhabi.”

Add the disclosed money, the equity holdings and the private-placement capital together, and Abu Dhabi’s total exposure to China’s embodied AI track has already exceeded $7 billion.

The Desert Super-Royal Family

Wuji Capital, CYVN Holdings and MGX are all well-known names, and behind them all is the same figure: Sheikh Tahnoun, the UAE’s most powerful “controller” and deputy ruler of Abu Dhabi.

Let’s first talk about Abu Dhabi itself.

Many people have heard of Dubai but know little about Abu Dhabi.

In fact, more than 90% of the UAE’s oil and natural gas lies beneath Abu Dhabi. Dubai’s oil has largely been depleted.

That is why Abu Dhabi is the richest of the UAE’s seven emirates and the real ballast of the Middle East.

Sheikh Tahnoun is the younger brother of the UAE president and one of Abu Dhabi’s most powerful princes.

The family behind him, the Abu Dhabi royal family, has surpassed America’s Walton family to become the richest family in the world.

The assets Sheikh Tahnoun can openly control and manage exceed $1.5 trillion. Put another way, he manages more than twice as much money as Elon Musk, the world’s richest person.

All of these top-tier pools of capital are linked to him in one way or another.

MGX is currently Abu Dhabi’s highest-level investment vehicle in AI, with no real peer.

With a fund size of $100 billion, it is billed as a national-level “AI wartime command center” and a top capital vehicle for competing for global AI dominance.

Sheikh Tahnoun serves as chairman of MGX himself.

CYVN Holdings, meanwhile, is a dedicated fund set up by the Abu Dhabi government for “mobility and autonomous driving.”

Its chairman, Jassim, is one of Sheikh Tahnoun’s closest lieutenants.

Then there is Wuji Capital, the most interesting of the three.

Wuji Capital was founded as early as 2015. At the time, it had no name recognition, no track record and no backing from major institutions. It was a little-known player, and few were willing to entrust it with capital.

According to a person familiar with the matter, Wuji Capital founder Qian Tao, who is Chinese, had to roll out all kinds of “promotions” at the time: for example, if you invested 100,000 yuan and lost money, he would personally cover the first 10,000 yuan of losses.

Then, in 2024, Wuji Capital suddenly took off.

Wuji Capital founder Qian Tao secured a financial services license from Abu Dhabi Global Market, and the firm established dual headquarters in Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi.

For a Hong Kong-backed fund to obtain a “Category 1 license,” it would need “guarantee” or an “invitation” from Abu Dhabi’s core power circle.

The license itself is a form of insider certification. A person familiar with the matter said: “Through introductions, Qian Tao began to have some kind of connection with Sheikh Tahnoun.” Multiple sources and transaction structures show that Wuji Capital has deep ties to Royal Group.

What is Royal Group? It is a diversified conglomerate chaired by Sheikh Tahnoun.

Royal Group provides long-term capital to Wuji Capital through vehicles such as IHC and 2PointZero.

According to a person familiar with the matter, UBTECH’s $1 billion investment “all came through these channels.”

There are more traces pointing to the relationship between Wuji Capital and Sheikh Tahnoun.

In its cooperation with UBTECH, Wuji Capital was not only a financial investor. It also acted as a connector, helping UBTECH link up with Abu Dhabi’s AI computing center and smart city projects.

All of these projects sit within Sheikh Tahnoun’s sphere of control.

From this, we can see that Wuji Capital is a carefully designed “capital channel” for Sheikh Tahnoun.

The Mysterious Prince

Sheikh Tahnoun is regarded as the most mysterious, dangerous and fascinating operator in the Middle East.

In public, he almost always wears aviator sunglasses, rarely gives interviews and seldom shows emotion.

You may wonder why Sheikh Tahnoun does not invest directly, but instead uses so many funds and channels to invest in China’s robot industry.

Abu Dhabi has felt deeply the pain of being “choked” by the United States.

The most typical case is G42, the royal family’s core AI asset. Because G42 had hardware and business cooperation with Chinese companies including Huawei, it came under intensive U.S. scrutiny starting in 2023.

The U.S. message was clear: if you still want to use OpenAI and NVIDIA chips, stop working with China.

To secure Microsoft’s $1.5 billion investment and regain U.S. trust, G42 was forced to publicly announce that it would divest its China assets and even remove some Chinese hardware.

Both G42 and the previously mentioned super fund MGX are currently under the U.S. government’s microscope.

When they engage with Chinese companies, “everything is done quietly.” Although the “brain” depends on the U.S., Abu Dhabi understands this very clearly.

If it wants to build robots, China is the only place in the world that can bring costs down and mass-produce at scale.

Abu Dhabi badly needs robots. In summer, ground temperatures can reach 50 degrees Celsius, and a person working outdoors for 20 minutes may suffer heatstroke.

Foreign workers account for more than 80% of the workforce. Employers cover food, housing and air tickets, and still pay agency fees. If visa rules change, or neighboring Saudi Arabia raises wages, workers can leave at any time.

So what Abu Dhabi wants is labor that will not suffer heatstroke and will not run away.

Robots fit that need perfectly. The prince is also a committed believer in AI.

G42, the UAE national AI company he founded, takes its name from the science fiction novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In the book, the ultimate answer to the universe is 42. Beneath his cold exterior, he has a geek’s ambition.

He firmly believes that AI and robots are the “ultimate answer” for the post-oil era. China has also given him the answer he wants.

At Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa Port, summer ground temperatures approach a terrifying 70 degrees Celsius, and human drivers often suffer heatstroke and require emergency treatment.

China’s Westwell brought in fully unmanned heavy trucks, with no cab needed, and they have now been running there for four years.

Beyond that, Renjie Intelligent’s photovoltaic cleaning robots climbed onto the rooftops of large factories and solar power stations in Abu Dhabi in 2024, sweeping sand every day.

Chinese robots may not be the “most advanced,” but they are certainly cost-effective and battle-tested. That is why Abu Dhabi is bypassing the U.S. and using various channels to invest in Chinese robotics.

Tahnoun is not only a jiu-jitsu black belt, but also a fervent believer in the sport.

He has mandated Brazilian jiu-jitsu training in the UAE military and schools, and has staged the world’s largest jiu-jitsu competition. The core of jiu-jitsu is “using the small to overcome the large” and applying leverage. He has carried those principles into his investment strategy.

Abu Dhabi is a small country, but the prince wants to use capital as “leverage” to move the global technology map.

By investing in Chinese robots, he is using money as leverage to lock in China’s industrial chain and ultimately put it to his own use.

In Tahnoun’s eyes, business and jiu-jitsu are the same: once you find the right fulcrum, a smaller player can dance with giants.

As Wall Street financiers continue to read the geopolitical mood and hesitate over whether to pull money out of China, Sheikh Tahnoun, behind his sunglasses, has quietly completed a bottom-fishing layout.

Years from now, when the world looks back at the capital winter of 2025, it may realize that China lost Wall Street’s “hot money” that year, but gained a Middle Eastern lifeline; Abu Dhabi spent petrodollars, but bought into the future.

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