UAE’s own telecom giant Etisalat Group (ETISALAT) is joining forces with another home-grown tech company Group 42 (G42) to establish the country’s largest data center provider.
The combined venture will oversee 12 data centers, with G42 owning 60% and Etisalat owning 40% of the new entity, respectively. Mubadala-owned Khazna Data Centers, a commercial data infrastructure solutions provider in the UAE, will be given the reins as the operator for the 12 centers. Group 42 comes into the agreement as a leading AI and cloud computing company based in Abu Dhabi — something of key importance as firms globally are looking for cloud-based, data storage solutions. With Etisalat’s telecom expertise and Khazna’s operational know-how to add, it looks like the agreement has all the key bases covered. As the MENA data center sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8% and reach $5b by 2026, the JV is well-positioned to capture that market size.
Why it matters
The UAE and the wider GCC region is starting to see meaningful buzz in the data center space — Microsoft’s (MSFT) Azure already has two UAE data centers, while Amazon’s (AMZN) AWS targets to open three by H1 2022. No wonder then that Etisalat’s stock rose by 0.3% yesterday.
