UAE Abandons Single Site for AI Data Center Park Amid Regional Tensions

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is revising its plan to build a massive artificial intelligence data center park in Abu Dhabi, shifting from a single large site to a multi-point layout across the country. The project, led by G42 and partners including NVIDIA, OpenAI, Oracle, Cisco, and SoftBank, aims to provide 5GW of capacity, serving nearly half of the global population within 3,200 kilometers with low-latency computing.

The original plan was to build a single park covering about 10 square miles in Abu Dhabi, but concerns over heightened risk assessments for centralized critical facilities due to conflicts in the Gulf region have led to the change. Industry executives had previously stated that the first phase of two buildings of about 100MW each has been topped out and equipment is on-site.

The multi-point layout will extend transmission and cooling chains, diversifying risks. The project remains tied to a $1.4 trillion investment commitment to the U.S., which includes chip export licenses. Funding shifts from park construction to multi-site and reinforcement budgets.