Data Center World will hold its first Middle East edition in the UAE capital, bringing together the people who build, power, finance and regulate the region’s AI infrastructure.
Building on the success of it’s flagship US conference, Data Center World Middle East, running from 17-18 November, follows the launch of events inAustralia, Latin America and Europe in 2026, reflecting rising global demand for digital infrastructuredriven by AI adoption, cloud growth and surging data consumption.
Organised by inD – an Informa/DWTC company – the event puts delegates in the same room as the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, the UAE Ministry of Investment and the companies building and running Gulf capacity, including Khazna Data Centres, Core42 and Tabreed. Hyperscalers AWS, Google and Oracle, and AI computing leader NVIDIA, complete a line-up that pairing senior industry voices with deep technical expertise.
The event at the Dusit Thani Abu Dhabi coincides with a sharp rise in regional capacity. Omdia, the technology research and advisory group within Informa TechTarget, identifies the Middle East as the world’s next data centre hot spot. It estimates the region added 1GW of new IT capacity in 2025, with data centre IT capacity compounding at almost 25% a year.
Efficiency is also becoming a priority as capacity scales. The Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure and Khazna Data Centres have launched a pilot to cut energy use in data centres and district cooling systems, with the technology claimed to reduce cooling-related consumption by up to 40%.
Eng. Mozah Alnuaimi, Chief AI Officer, UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, a speaker on the opening panel, said: “Every megawatt saved in cooling is a megawatt of compute the grid does not have to build for. In our climate, water efficiency and energy efficiency are the same discipline: liquid cooling, closed-loop systems, and clear intensity requirements. Through the Global Cooling Pledge and the Ministry’s planning tools, we are treating data centres as a national efficiency opportunity, not only a load, so growth in AI strengthens the system rather than strains it.”
The UAE is at the centre of that growth aiming to double the digital economy’s contribution to GDP, from 9.7% to 19.4%, within a decade. In Abu Dhabi, the Department of Government Enablement’s AED 13 billion digital strategy targets full migration to sovereign cloud on the way to an AI-native government by 2027, supported by a Unified Government Data Centre. Khazna, meanwhile, is building G42’s 1GW Stargate UAE cluster with partners including OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco and SoftBank.
Sean James, Distinguished Engineer – Energy Systems, NVIDIA, said: “AI load does not behave like the load utilities planned for. I watched other markets pay for that lesson. Hundreds of megawatts moving in seconds is a power quality problem before it is a capacity problem. Solve it inside your own fence, with storage and controls. The same batteries that smooth your load can hand the utility ride-through and voltage support back. Then the interconnection conversation shifts from whether to when.”
Tara Gibb, Senior Event Director for Data Center World, said: “Data Center World goes where the industry is building, and the Gulf is now one of its most important growth markets. For the first time in the region, the operators building Gulf capacity, the hyperscalers and two federal ministries share one programme. The programme moves from market outlook to closed-door technical workshops, so delegates leave with clear priorities and the right contacts to move their projects forward.”
Day one opens with a panel on the risks and realities of the Gulf’s 3GW target for AI, power and sovereign demand. A Market Outlook 2030 session will assess where growth is most investable across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain.
The programme runs across keynote, conference and technical tracks, with closed-door workshops on AI hall design, cooling and electrical design for AI loads, built for people running data centres in 50°C conditions
The headline sponsor is Midea Building Technologies, the building and data centre cooling division of Midea Group, with Marwan AlObaidi, Regional Director – Data Centres & Applied Systems, among the speakers. Enover and E-kerno are Gold Sponsors with Endress+Hauser as Silver Sponsors
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