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From $20B sovereign AI hubs in Riyadh to a 500MW GPU city planned in Morocco and solar-powered aviation clouds in Dubai the first half of 2025 repositioned the Middle East & Africa from “frontier” to sovereign compute battleground.
We saw:
$75B+ in AI/data-center commitments across the Gulf, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa
Sovereign AI laws and national visions (2030/2040) turning compute into state infrastructure
Private capital stacking into neutral interconnect, powered land, and GPU factories
Energy strategies (utility PPAs, green corridors) fused directly to campus design
Power/GPU bottlenecks shaping which metros scale and which stall
H1 2025 wasn’t just growth. It was a strategic realignment.
This is your MEA recap of the 12 most important shifts and what they signal for global AI infrastructure.
Here’s What’s Inside
Top 12 announcements ranked — from Saudi’s $20B AI hub to Morocco’s 500MW NVIDIA campus
5 key infrastructure trends — sovereign compute, REIT/JV capital, GPU corridors, energy moats, African AI-first builds
5 emerging opportunities — GPU hosting, sovereign cloud JVs, renewable-linked AI factories, Tier-II African colos, powered-land banking
5 regional shifts — Riyadh globalizes, Abu Dhabi fuses power+compute, Lagos scales, North Africa rises, East Africa connects
5 critical constraints — power scarcity, GPU access, policy lags, climate risk, talent gaps
Top 12 MEA Announcements (H1 2025)
Below are the most impactful strategic moves shaping the Middle East & Africa data center sector in the first half of 2025, ranked by capital scale, geopolitical significance, and long-term market implications.
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