Meed | Ooredoo signs $550m data centre finance deal

Ooredoo signs $550m data centre finance deal

26 September 2024

Qatar-headquartered telecommunications and data services firm Ooredoo has signed QR2bn ($546.2m) of financing from three local banks to expand its data centre network.

Qatar National Bank, Doha Bank and Masraf Al-Rayan agreed to provide the 10-year financing facility to help expand the firm's existing data centre network to meet demand for future artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

It marks a key step for the Qatar government-owned but independently-managed company towards cashing in on the booming data centre market in the region.

The Middle East region – mainly Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Qatar – has a data centre operational capacity of about 340MW, which is expected to rise to around 537MW by 2029, according to US-based real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

The financing deal comes three months after US-based graphics processing unit (GPU) supplier Nvidia signed a deal to deploy its AI technology at data centres owned by Ooredoo in Qatar and five other countries: Algeria, Tunisia, Oman, Kuwait and the Maldives.

The deal will make Ooredoo the first company in the region that can give its data centre clients in those countries direct access to Nvidia's AI and GPU technology.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo