A massive global AI infrastructure initiative is taking shape as the UAE launches a 5-gigawatt data center project with backing from America’s technology giants. This new “UAE Stargate” development creates a parallel system to Trump’s domestic US Stargate initiative, establishing what appears to be the beginning of a coordinated international AI infrastructure alliance to meet the exponentially growing compute demands of advanced artificial intelligence systems.
The big picture: US tech giants Nvidia, Cisco, Oracle, and OpenAI are backing the new ‘UAE Stargate’ artificial intelligence data center project in Abu Dhabi, developed by Emirati tech firm G42.
- The massive data center campus will cover 10 square miles with a total capacity of 5 gigawatts, beginning with a 1-gigawatt compute cluster in its first phase.
- Nvidia will provide its latest Blackwell GB300 systems to power the initial development of the project.
Strategic alignment: The UAE project directly connects with the US-based Stargate infrastructure initiative launched by President Trump after his January inauguration.
- The Stargate initiative has an estimated long-term cost of $500 billion, with $100 billion already allocated for its early phases.
- The core plan involves building a network of AI data centers across the US to support growing AI demands in research, healthcare, automation, defense, and finance.
Key players: The US Stargate project is being led by OpenAI, with crucial partnerships from SoftBank and Oracle.
- OpenAI is contributing AI models and technical leadership to the initiative.
- SoftBank is providing funding and strategic support, while Oracle will manage large portions of the backend architecture.
Global expansion: While initially focused on the US, the Stargate initiative is already extending internationally.
- Europe is considered a key strategic location, with the UK potentially leading international expansion efforts.
- OpenAI recently announced ‘OpenAI for Countries’ to facilitate infrastructure partnerships with national governments for building local AI data center capacity.
Why this matters: The AI boom is creating unprecedented demand for specialized computing infrastructure that traditional data centers cannot adequately support.
- Stargate aims to solve this bottleneck by developing purpose-built infrastructure specifically designed for AI workloads.
- The UAE partnership represents a significant step toward establishing a coordinated global network of high-capacity AI computing resources.
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