The Middle East has long been keen on becoming a data center hub: as early as 2017, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched an AI strategy that was designed to place it as a global leader in the space by the start of the next decade. It quickly showed how it wanted to do that by setting up G42 a year later to corral its cloud computing capabilities.
Qatar followed with its own national AI strategy in 2019, and Saudi Arabia did the same in 2020. All have thrown significant investment into their projects, which has in turn attracted global investment, which is also eager to take advantage of the region’s cheap energy costs and significant sovereign wealth.