How Stargate UAE outsizes the world's largest data centres

A plan to build a campus and data centre for artificial intelligence in the UAE marks one of the world's largest computing infrastructure projects.

Abu Dhabi AI company G42 has teamed up with technology giants OpenAI, Oracle and Nvidia, alongside SoftBank Group, to create Stargate UAE.

It will be the largest AI data centre, forming part of a system of OpenAI-linked data centres around the world and marking a further vote of confidence in the UAE's capabilities to host large-scale tech critical to today's economic, societal and business needs.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said in a post on X: "Great to work with the UAE on our first international Stargate! Appreciate the governments working together to make this happen. Sheikh Tahnoon has been a great supporter of OpenAI, a true believer in AGI, and a dear personal friend."

Here, we try to quantify what the big numbers mean and how Stargate UAE compares to its peers.

What is data centre capacity?

Data centre capacity is the total physical space and power needed to handle the storage and processing of data, typically measured in kilowatts or megawatts.

Data centres are grouped into three sizes: small, measuring up to about 1,000 square feet (93 square metres), medium, around 10,000 sqft to 50,000 sqft, and large, which are more than 50,000 sqft, according to Data Centre World.

In general, the bigger the data centre, the bigger its capacity. On a monthly basis, they are estimated to consume as much as 36,000kWh, 2,000MW and 10MW, respectively, it added.

The capacity of data centres is not exclusive to the power needed to handle data – it also includes other resources needed to run the facility, including cooling systems, its size, the types of servers used and, most importantly, how many graphics processing units, or GPUs, are in it. Increasingly, more sustainable and eco-friendly systems are being used by the industry to make them more efficient.

What can 1MW and 1GW do?

A single MW can support 1,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs for training or, in inference mode, tens of millions of daily ChatGPT‑style queries.

"Think of 1MW as the backbone for a mid‑sized national‑language model serving an entire country," Mohammed Soliman, director of the strategic technologies and cybersecurity programme at the Washington-based Middle East Institute think tank, told The National.

Meanwhile, 1GW of continuous power is enough to run roughly one million top‑end Nvidia GPUs once cooling and power‑conversion overheads are factored in.

In other words, that is roughly the annual electricity used by a city the size of San Francisco or Washington.

How much do data centres cost to build?

Depending on the size, anywhere from millions to billions of dollars.

The components needed to be taken into consideration are land and construction costs; equipment, most importantly how many servers will be hosted; infrastructure, including cooling systems and power (should be lower if green energy options are used); security measures, both physically and digitally; and manpower.

Also, data centre builders need to consider potential increases in operating costs as time goes on and the location where the data centre will be built. The most expensive markets for data centre construction are Tokyo, Singapore and Zurich, according to a study by UK professional services firm Turner & Townsend.

China Telecom Data Centre, the world's biggest before the unveiling of Stargate UAE, has a capacity of "only" 150MW and was built at a cost of $3 billion. Investments into 1GW Stargate UAE – built in co-operation with Cisco and Japan's SoftBank Group and part of a planned larger 5GW campus – will reportedly be in the $20 billion range, according to OpenAI.

How does Stargate UAE stack against other big data centres?

It actually blows everyone else out of the water – as shown by the aforementioned size of China Telecom Data Centre.

Stargate UAE even outsizes the data centres of Google and Microsoft, both in terms of size and cost: they have a capacity of 100MW and 50MW, respectively, and cost a reported $5.5 billion and $3 billion, according to data compiled by California-based technology services firm Brightlio.

Even Apple's data centre in Arizona only has a capacity of 50MW and cost $2 billion.

Once the 5GW campus is complete, it could host about 2.5 million GPUs while gulping as much power as several mid‑sized US cities combined, Mr Soliman added.

The UAE has at least 17 data centres, according to data compiled by industry tracker DataCentres.com, and has plans to boost this figure.

Abu Dhabi's Khazna Data Centres, one of the industry's largest operators in the Middle East, has a capacity of nearly 450MW and has plans to build a 100MW campus in Ajman, which would be its largest in the UAE. Its chief executive, Hassan Al Naqbi, had told The National that it expects UAE data centre capacity will leap to 850MW by 2029.

Last month, a hyperscaler data centre worth Dh2 billion ($545 million) to be built in Dubai was announced by telecom provider du and Microsoft. Even Awqaf Abu Dhabi, or the Endowment and Minors’ Fund Authority, is also open to investing in data centres as part of its push into defensive sectors to help shield its assets from economic shocks, its director general recently told The National.

That's aside from enormous investments poured in by Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Alibaba and other big-name players into the UAE's data centre market.

"The UAE lies at the crossroads of three high‑growth regions: South Asia, East Africa and the Middle East. It sits comfortably within the latency envelope that hyperscalers target," Mr Soliman said.

In addition, the Stargate UAE campus "should provide the steady demand that makes new clean‑energy projects bankable", he added.