HDDs are powering the next phase of UAE’s Data Strategy

In the Middle East, and particularly in the UAE, data is becoming the new oil. Fueled by large-scale investments in AI, cloud infrastructure, and strategic megaprojects, the region is on track to become a global data centre hub. But this rapid expansion brings a pressing question for businesses of all sizes: how can they harness the opportunity while simultaneously addressing the cost, performance, and sustainability requirements of the digital age? What must IT infrastructures look like to fully tap into AI’s potential, comply with data sovereignty rules, and avoid spiralling hardware costs?

Disaggregated storage: The next step for UAE’s AI-driven economy

The answer lies in storage disaggregation, an undervalued infrastructure approach that separates compute and storage resources for more efficient scaling. For years, many businesses relied on hyper-converged infrastructures (HCIs), which bundle compute, storage, and networking into one single, integrated system. While HCIs accelerated adoption and performance, they are now showing their limitations in the AI era.

With increasingly more enterprises embracing AI workloads, HCIs face growing challenges. They are causing bottlenecks when accessing data across different servers and often force costly overprovisioning and underutilisation cycles. Since storage and compute scale together in an HCI, companies end up adding entire servers even when only one element needs expansion. Comparable to buying a seven-seater car for a family of two, IT decision makers pay for and run much larger operations than necessary.

Disaggregated storage offers a smarter path forward. By separating storage and compute, UAE companies can upgrade their CPU and GPU nodes every few years to keep pace with the demands of AI workloads. However, storage resources do not need to be scaled at the same time, but can be utilised for several years longer, allowing companies to take full advantage of the longer warranty periods (up to five years) and refresh cycles. This avoids unnecessary replacements and lowers the total cost of ownership (TCO) through better resource utilisation.

Unlocking performance and efficiencies for UAE businesses

Another benefit of disaggregation is the performance optimisation. By integrating Non-Volatile Memory Express over Fabric (NVMe-oF^TM), disaggregated storage pools can deliver near-local performance. This reduces bottlenecks, accelerates data access, and ensures seamless scalability for AI, cloud, and high-performance computing environments.

For IT leaders in the UAE, this strength translates into more than just scalability and efficiency. It delivers the reliability and cost-effectiveness needed to support data-intensive AI workloads, while aligning with the country’s ambition to become a digital transformation leader.

Understanding the real-world business value of disaggregated storage

Today, UAE enterprises need more from their storage systems. They are looking for scalable, low-risk solutions that can evolve with them, delivering optimized cost per Terabyte ($/TB), improved storage density, high-quality, and trust to perform at scale. Disaggregated storage can answer this by offering:

• Independent scaling and flexible adaption to match AI workloads
• Better cost-efficiency through a denser, optimised infrastructure
• Performance optimisation via NVMe-oF
• Future-proof systems for accelerated computing environments

Independent benchmarks underscore this value. For instance, Western Digital’s OpenFlex Data24 4000 series was recently validated by MLPerf®, the industry’s gold standard for AI benchmarking. The results confirmed that disaggregated architectures, like Western Digital’s platform, can meet the stringent requirements of modern AI workloads, combining high performance with efficiency and scalability.  

Disaggregated storage: Supporting UAE’s Net Zero Vision

Beyond business value, storage disaggregation can also play a key role in sustainability. As a core pillar of the UAE’s Net Zero 2050 strategy, IT system architects in the region need to consider solutions that allow for a better energy-efficiency per TB (kW/TB), countering the enormous power consumption of data-intensive AI workloads. Disaggregation can directly support this by:

1. Reducing energy use: Independent scaling eliminates overprovisioning, cutting unnecessary server power consumption.
2. Lower cooling requirements: With fewer servers generating heat, UAE data centre operators and IT decision makers can reduce the cooling demands of their systems.
3. Extending hardware lifecycles:  With disaggregation, UAE companies can Refresh compute resources while continuing to use existing storage resources for years, also reducing e-waste.

By cutting energy use, reducing waste, and improving the efficiency, disaggregated storage directly lowers the total infrastructure footprint, supporting the national sustainability priorities.

Building for success

As the UAE accelerates its digital transformation, the ability to store, access, and manage data more intelligently will define the competitiveness of its enterprises. Businesses that adopt flexible, demand-driven storage architectures will not only optimise costs and performance but also contribute to the national’s ambitions in AI and sustainability leadership.

By embracing disaggregated storage and adapting a demand-driven system-level thinking, UAE organisations are positioning themselves at the forefront of the AI era, building infrastructures that are higher-performing, more resilient and efficient, and ready to power the next phase of the nation’s digital strategy.