Qatari telecoms company Ooredoo is borrowing QR2bn ($550mn) to expand its regional network of data centres, as the gas-rich Gulf nation seeks to capitalise on the information highway running through the Middle East.
Ooredoo is majority-owned by the Qatari government but listed and independently managed. Its data centre subsidiary, Mena Digital Hub, has obtained the 10-year financing facility from three Qatari banks and aims to overhaul and expand its data centres to meet demand for artificial intelligence applications.
Fossil fuel exporting Gulf nations are betting heavily on AI to diversify their hydrocarbon-dependent economies. They believe they can provide the cheap power needed to run the energy-hungry computing warehouses that crunch vast quantities of data for AI uses.
Analysts expect Saudi Arabia, the Gulf region’s largest economy, and the tech-focused United Arab Emirates to become the biggest markets for data centres and AI.
But Ooredoo also has big ambitions, aiming to build 120MW of data centre capacity in the next five years. That’s equivalent to about half of the region’s 237MW market today, according to data from international real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, which projects that figure will more than double to 537MW by 2029.
In June, Ooredoo struck a partnership with US semiconductor maker Nvidia, which produces chips that can be used in data centres to handle AI’s intense computing demand.
In the Gulf “there’s space for probably three to four major players”, Ooredoo’s chief executive Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo told the Financial Times. “We hope to be one of those.”
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