Blog · Middle East · · 5 min read

The Gulf is the biggest blind spot on the compute map.

Middle East GPU capacity is announced in gigawatts. What is live is hard to find. Projects, chip licences and power, each dated and attributed.

This is one regional piece in a global series on how compute is bought, priced and financed. The Gulf needs its own page. Middle East GPU capacity is announced in gigawatts, but the public record rarely says what is switched on. A buyer or a provider who relies on headlines will mistake plans for supply.

What has been announced

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman have each announced large AI projects. Every figure below is the announcer's own claim, with its date.

  • UAE. G42 says Stargate UAE is a 1 GW cluster inside a planned 5 GW UAE-US AI campus in Abu Dhabi. Khazna, G42's data centre arm, is developing it. OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco and SoftBank are named as partners. On 16 October 2025 a G42 spokesperson said the first 200 MW was expected to be complete by 2026. The same report says the rest of the cluster and the campus have no confirmed completion dates. (Gulf News, 16 October 2025.)
  • Saudi Arabia. On 22 October 2026 Humain said it would expand its Nvidia partnership to up to 84 MW, about 27,000 GPUs. The first 14 MW of Blackwell systems starts deployment in the fourth quarter of 2026. A further 70 MW of Vera Rubin systems is planned from mid-2027 and remains subject to final agreements. Humain also says it plans about 3 GW by 2030 and more than 6 GW by 2034. (The National, 22 October 2026.)
  • Qatar. On 9 December 2025 Brookfield and Qai, owned by Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, announced a $20 billion joint venture for AI infrastructure, including a compute centre. No megawatt figure was given. (Gulf Times, 9 December 2025.)
  • Oman. On 25 October 2026 a consortium led by Mubbadrah Investment announced a $3 billion AI data centre of up to 400 MW. A US AI infrastructure company has expressed interest as a tenant, but that is not a commitment. (Middle East AI News, 25 October 2026.) On 24 October 2026 the Oman Observer reported an agreement between Oman and the UK for a £1 billion AI data centre in Salalah, with Yamna as developer. Public announcements gave no megawatt figure and no site specification. The paper called it a plan, not evidence that new capacity is live. (Oman Observer, 24 October 2026.)

Check the status words. A signed agreement, an expression of interest and a groundbreaking are three different things. None of them is a live GPU.

Chips need a licence

None of this runs without advanced chips, and those need US export approval. On 19 November 2025 the US Commerce Department approved exports of up to 35,000 Nvidia Blackwell GB300 chips each to G42 in the UAE and Humain in Saudi Arabia. The approvals came with security and reporting requirements. (The National, 20 November 2025.)

The 84 MW Humain plan sits on top of that. The National notes that both countries depend on US export approvals for advanced chips. We found no public list of what has been licensed since, or what has shipped. A provider selling capacity into the region, and a buyer renting it, should ask which licence covers the chips and what conditions come with it.

Power decides what is built

An AI site needs far more power than a standard data centre. Hitachi Energy's Middle East and Africa executive vice president said in February 2026 that AI sites typically draw 100 to 500 MW, against 1 to 10 MW for a traditional one. He added that AI training causes fast swings in demand that strain grids. He gave no Gulf-specific grid figures. (Gulf Business, 9 February 2026.)

S&P expects the UAE and Saudi Arabia to add around 2 to 3 GW of IT power by 2030. It names low energy prices as an advantage, and says the UAE is investing in nuclear and other clean power. It cites 451 Research for build costs of about $11 million a MW in the UAE and $13 million a MW in Saudi Arabia for 2026 to 2030. (Khaleej Times, 5 October 2026, reporting S&P and 451 Research.) The Oman consortium says its partner will add 400 MW of solar generation with battery storage. That is the consortium's plan, not a built plant.

We found no published grid connection dates for the large campuses. Without them, a megawatt figure is a target.

Why public data on live capacity is thin

Estimates of the same market disagree, because they count different things.

Humain's own 3 GW for 2030 is above S&P's 1.9 GW for the same company and year. Knight Frank's 2.2 GW for the whole Middle East in 2026 sits beside 1 GW and 5 GW announced for single UAE projects. These are not errors. The figures use different definitions, regions and years. Any single number for the GCC data centre market needs its scope read first.

Analysys Mason said in December 2025 that its GCC figures come from public announcements, not confirmed live capacity. It put announced AI data centre capacity in the GCC at more than $30 billion to 2030. Knight Frank, as summarised by Middle East AI News on 30 January 2026, said that more than 14 GW of announced capacity across the region would realistically deliver closer to 5 GW by the end of the decade. That summary was written with AI assistance and we could not check it against the report.

On Stargate UAE itself, we found no announcement from G42 or OpenAI, at the time we read, that the first 200 MW is live. Outside sources point to a late 2026 target. Treat any claim either way as unconfirmed until the operator says so.

What to ask

The same checks apply in any region. How to buy GPU capacity sets out the full list. For the Gulf, add these.

  • Is it live? Ask for the hall, the energised megawatts and a date for each stage.
  • Which licence covers the chips, and who holds it?
  • Where does the power come from, and when does the grid connection land?
  • Who owns the GPUs, the building and the power contract?
  • What is the price? Published rates are a start, and the list price is not the price.

The gap between what is announced and what is live is wider in the Gulf than almost anywhere. It is also the gap where careful buyers and honest providers find each other.

Sources

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