Capital as Statecraft

Executive Summary

GCC sovereign investment constitutes a systematized approach for establishing strategic presence through capital deployment across infrastructure, emerging technology, and industrial domains. Foreign direct investment functions as an instrument that systematically institutionalizes economic integration as a mechanism of power projection. Analysis of the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s outbound FDI from 2015-2025 reveals divergent strategic logics that vary systematically based on recipient state institutional capacity. This report examines how GCC states, particularly the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, deploy outbound foreign direct investment for strategic long-horizon positioning.

Core Findings:

• The UAE operates a dual-track deployment strategy targeting key infrastructure and energy systems in fragile states while acquiring stakes in emerging technology and advanced industrial sectors in developed economies. This pattern reflects an evolving mode of statecraft, in which capital is deployed to embed influence within the systems that underpin national and economic power.¹
• Between 2015 and 2025, the UAE deployed $449 billion across 138 countries, while Saudi Arabia invested $147.5 billion through a systematic geoeconomic strategy.
• In fragile contexts, UAE investment concentrates on critical physical infrastructure assets such as transportation systems, maritime facilities, supply chain corridors, power generation, and real estate, gaining strategic access to assets that are essential to national functionality and economic sovereignty. In advanced economies, investment targets semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, and AI ecosystems: sectors central to global industrial competition.
• Saudi Arabia operates through a parallel but distinct logic. Saudi FDI concentrates on energy infrastructure and industrial sectors, with significant deployment in Global South and BRICS states, while maintaining limited engagement in fragile states or technology-intensive markets. Saudi Arabia pursues economic anchoring through energy interdependence, rather than insertion into diverse strategic sectors.
• These patterns demonstrate a fundamental shift in how the GCC states project themselves globally. GCC sovereign capital increasingly operates as an alternative node of strategic financing, providing differentiated terms in fragile settings while acquiring stakes in advanced industrial ecosystems.
• This capital deployment serves dual purposes: establishing a strategic presence in fragile states and securing technological access in advanced economies, while balancing commercial returns with geopolitical objectives across both contexts. GCC capital now functions as a pole of strategic financing with its own geopolitical logic distinct from US, Chinese, and Russian approaches.