Asked about the terms of the deal, including the board seats, the timing and the size of the investment, Mr. Wachsman said, "We made the deal in question because we strongly believe that it was what was best for our company as we continue to grow." Representatives for Sheikh Tahnoon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump family's business dealings with the Emiratis have blurred the line between government and private enterprise, alarming ethics experts and congressional Democrats. Sheikh Tahnoon, a member of the Emirati royal family, has been a major foreign policy intermediary with the United States for over a decade on matters varying from combating terrorism to sharing advanced computer technology. He runs a sprawling investment empire that includes G42, a technology firm that has become a powerhouse in the booming world of artificial intelligence.

An "unprecedented" new computer chip could help revolutionise AI, according to its creators. The system should allow increasingly complex artificial intelligence to live on chips themselves, without having to send information to the cloud. At the moment, most applications of AI are not done locally on a device, because they have limited battery lives and processing power. Instead, information is sent over the internet to another computer, where it is analysed or computed and then sent back down again. Eventually, experts hope that artificial intelligence will be able to be embedded in "edge" devices: objects such as phones that could perform detailed AI tasks whenever and wherever.