Abu Dhabi's AI Data Centre Build-Out Needs 2GW of Power at First, Rising to 5GW

The Department of Energy's estimates, and the views of operators, were set out ahead of Data Center World Middle East. The conference holds its first regional edition in Abu Dhabi on November 17 and 18. The emirate is already the largest data centre market in the Middle East, with 374MW of IT capacity, according to property consultancy JLL.

The power figures show the size of the gap between current capacity and the emirate's AI plans. The demand is backed by AED250 billion of planned investment in energy and water infrastructure between 2025 and 2035.

Mehdi Paryavi, chairman and chief executive of the International Data Center Authority, said the biggest obstacle to making Gulf data centres ready for AI is "the lack of a coordinated approach to scale". He said the region needs adaptable standards, a skilled workforce, long-term regional planning, reliable energy at the scale AI requires, and greater stability. Developers should work closely with governments, utilities and industry partners to build "an ecosystem that can support sustainable, large-scale AI infrastructure", he added.

For operators already adding capacity, the problem is not only finding power but also preparing sites for denser, hotter AI workloads. Khazna Data Centers, which runs 30 data centres with 673MW of capacity, is one of the main builders behind the UAE's AI infrastructure plans.

Morten Tidemand, Khazna's senior director of operations, said operators have to accept that "operational readiness cannot begin at handover". Higher rack densities mean cooling strategies, maintenance schedules and emergency procedures have to be rethought well before new capacity goes live, he said. He added that operations teams need to understand how increasingly complex systems work together, not in isolation.

The conference will include speakers from AWS, Google, Microsoft and Oracle, along with officials from the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure and the Ministry of Investment. Technical sessions will cover liquid cooling and running data halls that mix high- and low-density equipment.

Tara Gibb, senior event director for Data Center World, said the emirate had made its commitments, and that turning them into "capacity that runs reliably at 50°C depends on everyone working from the same plan".