The article describes how the Stargate UAE project — a massive AI data-center campus in Abu Dhabi — is being positioned as the world’s largest AI infrastructure build outside the United States. The plan involves a 10-square-mile campus designed to deliver up to 5 gigawatts (GW) of computing capacity.
Construction begins with a first-phase capacity of 1 GW, with initial servers expected online around 2026. The facility will use state-of-the-art AI hardware — including advanced servers powered by cutting-edge chips — to support large-scale AI workloads, making it a central hub for data, cloud services, and AI model hosting.
This push signals the UAE’s ambition not only to serve its domestic market but to become a global AI hub — offering compute and cloud services to companies and governments around the world. Its strategic location (connecting Asia, Africa, Europe) and planned scale make it an attractive alternative to existing data-center clusters.
However, such ambition also brings challenges and scrutiny. Building and running a data center of this magnitude—especially for AI workloads—requires massive energy, cooling, and infrastructure management. The success of the project will depend on how sustainably the UAE manages these demands while ensuring security, reliability and global-scale accessibility.
