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Connect the World

Ukrainian Lawmaker Slams Reported New U.S. Peace Plan; 26 Reported Dead in Russian Attack on Apartment Buildings; Nvidia Reports Strong Earnings Amid Fear of AI Bubble; U.S. Authorizes Export of Nvidia AI Chips to UAE, Saudi Firms; Italy to Face Northern Ireland in Playoff Semifinal. Aired 9-9:45a ET

Aired November 20, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST, CONNECT THE WORLD: Thousands -- over 1000 guests are expecting at Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's funeral today.

The two current leaders are apparently not on the guest list. It is 09:00 a.m. in Washington. It is 06:00 p.m. in Abu Dhabi.

I'm Becky Anderson from our Middle East programming headquarters. This is "Connect the World". Also coming up, we're learning new details about the

Trump peace proposal for Ukraine. A source has just told CNN that it would require land concessions and military reduction.

And President Trump signed bill forcing the release of the Epstein case files into law. So, what happens next? Well stock market in New York opens

about 30 minutes from now. The arrows pointing higher after a rise in the number of U.S. jobs created in September, 119,000.

More details on that jobs report that has just dropped in a moment. Well, we start with new efforts by the United States to end Russia's war on

Ukraine and the difficult diplomacy ahead. Today in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet with senior Pentagon

officials, reportedly to discuss a U.S. drafted plan that would include ceding territory and some weapons.

A senior Ukrainian lawmaker calls the reported plan a non-starter. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLEKSANDR MEREZHKO, CHAIR OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE IN UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT: This plan seems to be aiming at surrender of Ukraine. And for

us, it's totally unacceptable. And I do hope that it's not serious. Everything looks very suspicious. And for Ukraine, it's totally

unacceptable to take such decisions without our participation.

We hope that President Trump will continue to honor important principle nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, the European Union also weighing in at a meeting in Brussels.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAJA KALLAS, EU FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF: Of course, for any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board. So, this is very clear. Also, we

have to understand that in this war, there is one aggressor and one victim. So, we haven't heard of any concessions on the Russian side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, meantime, entire families are reported missing after an overnight Russian attack on apartment buildings in the west of Ukraine. At

least 26 people reported killed, nearly 100 more injured the death toll from that attack expected to rise. Well, Kevin Liptak, connecting us from

Washington, Kevin.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, and you know, this 28- point plan clearly seems like President Trump's attempt to replicate what he did in Gaza, you know, create this multi-point proposal and essentially

force the two sides to agree to it.

And I am learning more about what exactly is contained in this framework from a Western official. It would envision Ukraine giving up the entire

Donbas region, those are the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. Ukraine currently holds some territory in those regions, so it would require

Ukraine to give up territory that it currently holds in the other contested regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the current battle lines would be

frozen.

Ukraine would also be required to cap the size of its military and give up some of the long-range capabilities that the West has provided Kyiv over

the course of this war. I'm also told that the proposal contains some provisions related to the Russian language and to the Russian Orthodox

Church, and that it would contain some U.S. backed security guarantees.

So, this is a new plan that was developed by the President's Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, in partnership with the Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev.

The two of them have worked on it. And part of the trip that we saw this week by senior Pentagon officials to Ukraine, led by the Army Secretary Dan

Driscoll, was intended to brief the Ukrainians on this plan, and in the words of one White House official, to restart the peace process.

Because, you know, it had mostly been stalled. The president had spoken to Vladimir Putin in the last few months. He had seemed confident that they

would be able to come to a meeting in Budapest.

[09:05:00]

But all of that essentially fell apart. But it's clear that the president and senior officials at the White House do see a new window of opportunity

for getting a peace plan in place. One they say that the Kremlin now seems more willing to agree to a peace deal than they were previously.

But I think it's also clear that they see President Zelenskyy in Ukraine facing some serious political vulnerabilities. There's a corruption

investigation that is sort of creeping closer and closer to his inner circle, and I think it's evident that Trump and senior officials do view

this as a moment to try and get a ceasefire and peace plan in place.

Now this is to be clear proposal. It's not finalized. We heard yesterday from the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, describing it as, quote, a list

of potential ideas. But I think there is clearly a long way to go before Ukraine will agree to anything.

ANDERSON: Always good to have you. Kevin, thank you. Kevin Liptak is in Washington. Well, a long-delayed U.S. jobs reporters just dropped about 30

minutes ago. And we now have closely watched results from the world's most valuable company. What these numbers could be saying about the U.S.

economy, with affordability making a very big noise across the U.S.

See September jobs numbers finally out after being put on hold due to the government shutdown. The delayed report says the U.S. economy added 119,000

jobs in September. Unemployment, though, rose to a nearly four years high. The October payroll numbers will be included with November's report

released in mid-December.

Well, we are also watching for Wall Street's reaction to earnings from Nvidia, the star of the AI boom. They blew past expectations after the bell

Wednesday sales grew to $57 billion in the third quarter. That is up 62 percent from the same time last year. Now, most of the world's AI

technology runs on these Nvidia chips.

And the company doesn't see the AI spending spree slowing anytime soon. Let's get another look at how those Wall Street futures are reacting to all

of this. This is the picture as things stand. And remember, look at that NASDAQ up over 2 percent that tech heavy NASDAQ and Nvidia making up a

significant share of that index.

We'd had a number of sorts of losing sessions until yesterday. So, these markets really making up some of the losses they've seen of late. We'll

wait to see how they settle down and how they might indicate. Well, they certainly indicate a higher open on Wall Street. Let's see how those settle

down in the next 25 minutes or so.

CNN's Matt Egan joining us now for a look at the long-awaited U.S. jobs report. And as we've been reporting today, the report originally slated for

release in early October, it was shelved, Matt, because of the U.S. government shutdown. So, let's have a look at this data and what it says

about the U.S. economy. It certainly serves as a crucial snapshot at this point.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, Becky, a crucial snapshot on what the economy looked like entering the government shutdown, and we had to wait

seven weeks for this jobs report. We hoped it would provide some clarity on the state of the job market. I don't really think it does.

I think it just adds the confusion, because this was a very mixed report. The good news is that the U.S. economy added 119,000 jobs during the month

of September. Context, that's more than twice the 50,000 jobs that had been anticipated, and it is more than enough to keep the economy and the job

market in a state of balance, because the break-even number is about 50,000 jobs.

However, I think the bad news here is the unemployment rate. It was expected to stay at 4.3 percent it did not. It went up to 4.4 percent that

is a fresh four year high. The other disappointing news is there were some negative revisions, some more negative revisions.

Previously August was slightly positive at 22,000 but it has been revised, to slightly negative. And we also had July that was revised a little bit

lower as well. And so, what this shows is that really two out of the last four months that we have numbers on, we have negative job growth, and that

is after a stretch of nearly four years of no months of negative job growth.

So that really speaks to the weakness in the job market. But look at this rebound. This is a bigger rebound than had been anticipated for the month

of September. Now, when we look at the sectors. The bad news here is that manufacturing lost another 6000 jobs. That's the sector that the president

is trying to prop up with very high tariffs, but that sector continues to lose jobs, which is the exact opposite of what the White House is hoping

for.

[09:10:00]

However, construction rebounded after a month of losing jobs. Gain 19,000 in health care. This has been a go to sector for job growth, and it

provided another nearly 60,000 jobs. One last point for you. There's so much attention right now on the affordability crisis in the United States.

So, this chart shows wages in the blue line and prices inflation in the red line. And what you can see is, in 2023 at the end of this inflation crisis,

we still had a situation where prices were going up well faster than paychecks, and that's why people felt like they could not catch up.

Thankfully, that's not the case anymore. Wages are going up more than inflation. But I think that what stands out here is the gap is starting to

narrow, right? Prices are going up at a faster and faster clip, and wages are not and so that's another reason why people feel like they're under

pressure right now, and it's difficult to make ends meet.

So bottom line, Becky, this report paints a very mixed picture, and I don't know that it gives anything the clarity that the Federal Reserve was

seeking as they try to decide what to do about raising about lowering interest rates or keeping things steady? Back to you.

ANDERSON: Good to have you. Matt Egan in the House. Let's get you more now on the numbers and the big picture for the global economy, I'm talking

Nvidia now with my guest, Richard Windsor. He's Founder of Radio Free Mobile, I get your emails actually, and your analysis is always really

useful. So, thank you for coming on.

RICHARD WINDSOR, FOUNDER OF RADIO FREE MOBILE: Thank you, Becky.

ANDERSON: Until the Nvidia's blockbuster numbers, Wall Street have been somewhat sweating over the AI cap act capex spree and wondering if there is

an AI bubble. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, said, and I quote here, Richard, there's been a lot of talk about an AI bubble, but from our vantage point,

we see something very different, he said. And it looks like investors are buying that, Richard.

WINDSOR: Yeah, I think that's right. If you look at what he said about demand, he reckons in the next six quarters or so. He's going to get about

$500 billion of revenues when, if you put that into the numbers, you can basically see that next year is likely to see strong revenue growth again.

Now, if you look at the commitments from the hyperscalers in terms of capex, it's very clear where this money is coming from. And so as long as

nothing goes particularly wrong in terms of a sudden collapse in demand or wipe out in terms of valuations or some external event, I think the next

few quarters for Nvidia look pretty safe.

ANDERSON: Let's have a look at the numbers. Nvidia sales grew 62 percent year on year to $57 billion posted profits of 31.9. Just explain where that

money is coming from. Who are its best clients at this point? And how concerned should investors be about what we've been describing and seeing

as circular funding of this sort of AI build out at this point?

WINDSOR: Yeah. OK, great question. So, the first thing to for, from a layman's perspective, the way to think about Nvidia is in Gold Rush terms.

It is the picks and shovels of artificial intelligence. It has 85 percent market share of the market for the chips that are used to train and run AI.

Take that hand in hand with companies like Google, Meta platforms, Microsoft, Amazon, all of those guys. Between them, they're going to spend

more than $100 billion each on capex next year. So, you can start to see where that -- where basically, where this money is coming from.

Then, on top of that, you've got open AI, which is probably going to spend as committed to spend 1.4 trillion over the next five years. Whether it

does or not, I think remains to be seen. But you can see where the demand is coming from. Now, what's also happened is that these guys have all done.

That I wouldn't describe them as circular as they were back in the internet bubble, but they're certainly related. Now in terms of risk, which is what

the investors will all be asking, is, yes, it does raise risk. Why, because if they're all interrelated, then effectively what happens at one company

has an impact on what happens at another.

And you can kind of see how something small might turn into something larger as they all impact one another, and the dominoes tend fall over. So,

from that perspective, it does raise risk, but it's not as bad as the internet bubble, in my opinion.

ANDERSON: You've written about bubble concerns, giving the for and against arguments, and you've talked there about how you feel, and you've certainly

talked about over building mega valuations, lack of real learning intelligence of these machines and the necessary power.

[09:15:00]

And you've talked about those as the factors that indicate in your mind that there could though be a bubble, but you're saying the demand, the

awareness of the possibility of a bubble and the expandable timeframe of these deals, you know, have got to be factored into all of this.

I mean, you know, I hear what you're saying, but there that demand, ultimately, is still very hypothetical, isn't it?

WINDSOR: Yes, you're right, and one of the ways to look at this is look at the economics of CoreWeave. So CoreWeave by the end of this year, if you

extrapolate what capacity it has and what revenue it's going to make, it would seem that the pricing for CoreWeave is about $7 billion per gigawatt

of AI compute capacity that you have.

Now a gigawatt of AI compute capacity costs somewhere between 40 to $50 billion to build, and it lasts according if you get -- if the depreciation

numbers are correct, anything up to seven years. The problem with that is, obviously, is if I make $7 billion a year, by the end of seven years, I've

only made 54 billion.

And if it costs me 50 billion to build it, I've made virtually no money before I've even paid any expenses at all, and the economics don't work.

That is a very valid argument. So, the way I look at it is we are in a bubble, certainly in terms of valuation for some companies. Yes, there will

be a correction.

Will it be a collapse, a calamitous collapse, like we saw with the internet bubble, or, you know, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the financial

crisis. No, but I think what it we will see is an orderly reallocation of capital to projects that make economic sense, which is not precisely what

is happening today.

ANDERSON: Good to have you, sir, always a pleasure. Thank you.

WINDSOR: Thank you --

ANDERSON: Right, still come president, Donald Trump signs Epstein bill into law putting the U.S. Justice Department on the clock now, fresh questions

so swirling over what files will actually be released. And a major flare up in violence in Gaza is putting pressure on what is a fragile ceasefire.

We'll get you more on that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: No typical TV cameras, no pomp and circumstance. Instead, President Donald Trump announcing in a lengthy social media post that he

has signed the bill, directing the DOJ, the Justice Department in the United States, to publicly release all files in the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Now this follows a months' long battle by the president to prevent their disclosure.

[09:20:00]

The DOJ now has 30 days to make the documents available. However, it can withhold some files that may identify victims or that relate to ongoing

investigations, and that is something Attorney General Pam Bondi alluded to in a news conference on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What changed since then that you launched this investigation?

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Information that has come for -- information - - there's information that new information, additional information, and again, we will continue to follow the law to investigate any leads.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well CNN's Alayna Treene, live at the White House. It was an interesting response there. Not the confident Pam Bondi that we have grown

to see. The clock ticking here 30 days now for the DOJ to release the files. Talk to us about how this process will work, Alayna.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, this is highly unusual. I should point out, Becky, that these are normally closed files that wouldn't

see the light of day. But as you said, it has been months in the making, particularly a battle that many of the survivors of Epstein's abuse have

been pushing for that finally led to this.

And now that both the House and Senate have passed this bill, the president signed it last night. Essentially, this means that the Justice Department's

hands are ties. They are being compelled to release these materials. The question that we're waiting for is, when will we see them and how much will

we actually see?

Now, as you mentioned, Becky, they have 30 days. That's what the law states. 30 days to turn over these materials. But some things in them as

well say, one all of the victim's names and identities must be redacted to protect them and their identities. But then also, there's a part in this

law that also says that the Justice Department has the opportunity to withhold some information as it relates to an ongoing criminal

investigation.

Now that really is going to be a decision. What potentially gets held back that is made by the Attorney General Pam Bondi, as well as the FBI

Director, Kash Patel. I would remind you, though, just a couple days ago on Friday, that is when we heard President Donald Trump asked the Justice

Department to open an investigation into some Democrats ties to Epstein.

People like the Former President Bill Clinton or the Former Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers. So, there could be some cases where we may not

actually get everything. Now, you pointed to the president's lengthy statement. One thing it did not mention, Becky, was the survivors who have

been such a central part of this coming to Washington repeatedly to call for all of these documents to be published and released.

But we did hear one statement from the family of Virginia Giuffre. She was one of the most notable Jeffrey Epstein survivors. She's written a book on

what she went through, she since has passed away, but her family said that they look forward to the next chapter. They said, quote, we remain

vigilant.

This work is not finished. They said, every name must be revealed, regardless of power, wealth or party affiliation. That is very similar,

Becky, to what we have heard from other survivors who want to see anyone who was involved in the wrongdoing and the crimes committed by Epstein

brought to light.

And so again, now we're really in this wait and see period of what the Justice Department is going to decide, and of course, whatever they do end

up holding back that will likely be another fight that this administration is going to have to grapple with.

ANDERSON: Good, gotcha. All right. Good. Thank you, Alayna Treene. Well, Hamas is warning of, and I quote here, dangerous escalation, after Israeli

strikes across Gaza killed at least 32 people in the latest flare up of violence. Now, 12 kids amongst those killed, according to the Palestinian

Health Ministry.

Israel says it was striking Hamas targets after Israeli soldiers were attacked, a claim that Hamas has rejected. Well CNN's Nic Robertson is live

in Jerusalem. Just how significant is this coming, as it does, just days after the Security Council at the U.N. endorsed Donald Trump's plan to move

to the so-called phase two of his peace plan? Where does this put the truce at this point?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, that Security Council resolution really gave legal standing to President Trump's 20-point

plan. But the difficulty is that until that plan is really fully in place, the international stabilization force, the board of peace, the Palestinian

police force, the opportunity, if you will, for mistakes to be made or misinterpretations to be made.

The IDF claiming that they were shot at by terrorists, Hamas saying they didn't shoot at the IDF, as you say, 12 children were killed, and it was

eight women killed as well the 88 people injured.

[09:25:00]

And those round of strikes coming sort of over a period of a number of hours and then abruptly stopping, the IDF claiming they were they killed a

couple of Hamas commanders during that time. It sorts of began abruptly, ended abruptly over a several hour period.

This could really be symptomatic, absent of all the structure that the Security Council said can go ahead, absent that this is the sort of thing

that can happen. And into that, Hamas is saying that the United States should be doing its bit. The U.S. Administration should be doing its bit to

constrain and restrain Israel.

But, you know, both Israel and Hamas have responded to that resolution poles apart. Hamas, saying we don't want an oversight body. It's an

international guardianship. We don't want international stabilization force disarming us. Israel has said it's important, necessary, critical, that

international body and the military forces disarm Hamas, make them not a danger to Israel.

These are contrary and contradicting positions. The stabilization force is months at least away, perhaps many months. So, where we stand to what we

saw yesterday can happen again, and it can happen quite easily, and as we saw yesterday, very quickly.

ANDERSON: Thank you, Nic. Nic is in Jerusalem, where the time is just before half past four in the afternoon. It's just before half past six

here, just before half past nine in New York. It is a big week for Nvidia, which, of course, is listed in New York, and not just on its earnings, but

also a big announcement from the region. That is next on "Connect the World".

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: -- in Abu Dhabi. You're watching "Connect the World" from our Middle East programming headquarters. These are your headlines. Ukrainian

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet top Pentagon officials in Kyiv today to discuss a reported U.S. drafted plan to end Russia's war on

Ukraine.

Now the plan would include ceding territory to Russia. One Ukrainian lawmaker calls it a non-starter. Well, long awaited U.S. jobs report offers

a mixed picture of the labor market. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added 119,000 jobs in September, up from August's

revised job losses.

The report also highlighted a weak point for the labor market. Unemployment rose to the highest it has been in nearly four years.

[09:30:00]

Right. You're looking at live pictures from the New York Stock Exchange. Viking ringing the bell today, and as they ring in that bell that will kick

off the trading day today, this Thursday. And we're going to let the numbers settle a little bit, fair to say that there is a lot driving the

markets.

This morning in New York that fresh jobs report. Nvidia's earnings that surpassed even ambitious expectations. The chip maker, which is seen as the

gold standard for AI computing power, has also announced major new deals in this region of the Middle East. The U.S. has authorized the export of

advanced AI chips to two companies in the UAE, where I am, and in Saudi Arabia.

The firm's G42 in the UAE and Humain in Saudi each getting approval to buy the equivalent of up to 35,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips worth an estimated $1

billion. Now, the green light by the U.S. Commerce Department marks a huge win for the Gulf's AI ambitions.

The UAE hailing the decision with its ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, saying, I quote, the authorization follows sustained engagement

between both governments and reflect the confidence that underpins our collaboration in advanced technology and national security.

Well, joining me now is Talal Al Kaissi, who is Acting Chief Global Affairs Officer at the UAE Global Tech Company G42. It's good to have you here.

TALAL AL KAISSI, ACTING GROUP CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS OFFICER, G42: It's good to be with you.

ANDERSON: Good day for you.

KAISSI: Indeed.

ANDERSON: UAE, intent on being a global leader in AI, in layman's terms, how does this announcement on chips help deliver on that huge ambition?

KAISSI: Well, I mean, you know, Becky, we are setting out to build what we refer to as the intelligence grid. And we're co architecting this grid with

our U.S. partners. And the UAE itself has a lot of the comparative and competitive advantages that make this somewhat a center of gravity where we

can attract these big companies to come and benefit from those advantages and be able to not just produce intelligence and manufacture intelligence

for domestic use, but also export that to a significant portion of --

ANDERSON: You talk about the intelligence grid. What do you mean by that?

KAISSI: So that's really the digital infrastructure that underpins the enablement of AI native societies, which is what we're setting out to do.

And the objective there is to really help ensure that there's equitable access to intelligence globally. And so, we can't do this on our own.

We do this with lots of partnerships, and that's where these deep partnerships now being able to also establish over here and in Abu Dhabi

can help us accelerate that.

ANDERSON: AI needs massive compute, data centers housing that compute need vast tracts of land, enormous amount of energy. And as you rightly point

out, partners, partners with chips, and the UAE increasingly has that palette, and you're building out one of the world's largest data centers

outside of the U.S., Stargate, UAE.

This was a project announced back in May when Donald Trump was here as part of his Gulf trip. And we've got some images of what's going on. I saw these

images recently. I was very surprised to see just how much progress appears to have been made already. Just talk about that progress and how big this

part of this project is?

KAISSI: Yeah, it's pretty incredible. I mean, when you think about 10 square miles, that's a massive amount of land and five gigawatts of energy

to be dedicated to manufacturing intelligence. Since Donald Trump's visit President Trump in May, we were able to get towards the 200 megawatts that

we are building out, which should be ready by 2026 where we'd be able to deploy some of the infrastructure that we're talking about and begin to

enable that and execute on that business plan.

ANDERSON: First phase then.

KAISSI: Yeah.

ANDERSON: Let's talk -- let's break down the numbers on this announcement, 35,000 chips. What does that look like? What does that mean?

KAISSI: Well, it means that we're going to be able to deploy these 35,000 chips and start manufacturing intelligence. So, it's -- you can think of it

as a refinery of energy that, then, in its most refined form, is producing these tokens. And these tokens are going to be consumed by businesses, by

governments and by institutions that are trying to create insights and derive insights out of lots of big data.

So, think healthcare, think energy, think geospatial analytics, all those are going to be very compute intensive types of programs that will derive

these --

[09:35:00]

ANDERSON: I spoke to Brad Smith when he was here.

KAISSI: Yeah.

ANDERSON: Big partner of yours from Microsoft, and he said, you know, we were talking about this narrative that's out there at the moment about

whether or not there is an AI bubble, whether we're sitting in that, whether we're set to hitting AI bubble at this point. He says, Microsoft,

they can't satisfy demand at this point.

They have more demand for AI services that then they can actually supply on and this is the point, right without these sorts of build outs, we're not

we probably will hit AI bubble, because we won't be able to satisfy demand.

KAISSI: And there is an insatiable demand for AI compute, if you think of all the different agents that are being developed right now, or all these

reasoning models are using more post training compute on the inference side, to think for those models, to think just like we do with an internal

monolog, and be able to come out with better quality output and more accurate insights. That's where all that demand is coming from, and will

continue to grow.

ANDERSON: So, you have no fears that the massive investment being made here and in other places is anything, but you know, good investment, and you'll

get the right return on investment. What I'm effectively saying you've got no fears about this being AI bubble at this point.

KAISSI: Not at all. I mean, when you think of the global demand for AI compute and what you can service out of the UAE. So, this 10 square mile

radius, five-gigawatt cluster is not only going to be used for domestic consumption, but we would be exporting tokens to around -- a radius of

around 3200 kilometers, within a very low latency framework, which would allow us to be able to then serve roughly half the world's population.

ANDERSON: So, you're talking about a hub which won't just serve the UAE, but a big, big part of the world, including the Global South, or the what's

known as a global majority these days. Saudi has huge ambitions as a regional and global AI hub. Can you just identify where the UAE is in terms

of its build out and how it differs from what we are seeing in Saudi?

And indeed, can the world deal with or is there enough room for two big AI superpowers in this region?

KAISSI: I think there are several countries that are really focused on AI, and most countries are interested in the enablement that, that provides,

and the augmentation of human ingenuity that, that provides. So, we encourage any company on any country to be focused on this key area in this

-- it's a general-purpose technology that's going to infuse every single facet of society.

So, you know, we're very, very bullish on AI and its proliferation across the board, and we're doing our part. You know, G42 is a company that is

global, that happens to have been born in the UAE and headquartered in the UAE. We already do have several deployments across the U.S., in Europe and

here in the UAE.

And we've been doing this for quite some time. So, we have some infrastructure and supercomputers built out in different countries around

the world today.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

KAISSI: So, we're going to continue to execute on that vision.

ANDERSON: You're at relatively mature point in your sort of, you know, tech story at this point. It's good to have you Talal, always a pleasure. Thank

you very much indeed. It is absolutely remarkable, I have to say, to be living here and as a resident in this country to just see how sort of every

facet of my life these days has got a sort of AI component.

We've been doing a lot of work on that is so it's been really interesting to watch this evolution. Good to have you, mate. Thanks.

KAISSI: Appreciate it.

ANDERSON: Well, the draw -- World Cup playoffs was revealed earlier on Thursday, and Italy have found out their opponents, as the Azzurri, look to

avoid missing out on the big stage for a third straight time. Details on that are just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:00]

ANDERSON: Well, we've had -- Curacao and Haiti book their tickets to next year's World Cup this week. But what about four-time winners Italy? Well,

they've had to do it the hard way by the playoffs if they are to avoid missing out for the third straight time. Amanda Davies joining me now.

And a World Cup without Italy was unheard of until recently, it is now becoming somewhat of the norm. How difficult is their road to North

America?

AMANDA DAVIES, CNN WORLD SPORT: Yeah, you know all those scenes of joy and celebration that we've been seeing over the last 24, 48 hours.

ANDERSON: Yes.

DAVIES: Well, the faces of those we've been speaking to in Italy are very, very different, dark and thundery, I think, is the mood, because there is

this kind of acceptance, this grim acceptance, of where they have fallen to as a side in recent times. They haven't been at a World Cup final since

2014.

And the fact they were beaten by Norway for one at the weekend really tells you just how big the Gulf has become. So, they are one of 22 sides in the

hunt for the remaining six places at next year's World Cup draw. And they've got a really tough playoff journey, which we will be talking about

in a couple of minutes time.

We've been hearing from our esteemed Italian colleague Tancredi, who, you know, always paint some wonderful pictures with his words.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

DAVIES: He does not mince them. He's coming your way.

ANDERSON: He doesn't -- Good. Stick with Amanda for that. She's up after the break. We'll be back in 15 minutes time with more. "Connect the World".

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[09:45:00]

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