By Alexander Cornwell, Rami Ayyub and Timour Azhari
Sept 11 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates is quietly revising plans for a 5-gigawatt AI data center project – one of the biggest outside the U.S. – after the Iran war prompted a rethink of how and where critical infrastructure should be built, six people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Originally envisaged as a 10-square-mile (26-square-kilometer) campus in Abu Dhabi, the project will now likely comprise a network of data centers spread across the UAE, according to four of the sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity.
Authorities are also considering ways to better protect the facilities from drone and missile attacks, including with air defenses and by building some underground, they said. The likely modifications to the project’s blueprint have not previously been reported.
DATA CENTER PROJECT IS CENTRAL TO UAE’S GLOBAL AI AMBITIONS
Plans for the UAE-US AI Campus, which is being built in partnership with American tech companies, were announced during President Donald Trump's visit last year to the wealthy Gulf state.
The project is central to the UAE's ambitions to become a global AI powerhouse as it shifts its economy away from oil. It is led by G42, an AI firm controlled by Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al Nahyan, the UAE national security adviser and brother of its president.
In return for access to Nvidia AI chips and other advanced U.S. technology, the UAE agreed to cut AI ties with China and invest in the Stargate initiative’s American data centers. Stargate is a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank to build AI infrastructure.
The people who spoke to Reuters included a U.S. official, a Western diplomat and industry executives briefed on the deliberations. The news agency could not determine how close Emirati authorities are to finalizing a new masterplan or the extent to which the proposed changes might affect construction costs and timelines.
Construction on the first phase of the project, a $30-billion, 1-gigawatt compute cluster known as Stargate UAE, began last year with the first 200 megawatts of capacity due to come online this year. When completed, it will have enough capacity to connect every UAE government agency and commercial institution to the world's most advanced AI models, according to Larry Ellison, chairman and chief technology officer at Oracle, which is partnering with G42 on the project.
Responding to Reuters questions about potential revisions to the project, G42 said work on the AI campus was progressing as planned.
“The project's specifics are subject to continuous review in line with the security, resilience and operational standards expected of critical infrastructure at this scale,” the company said without elaborating.
OpenAI said it was working with the UAE to achieve its AI vision and making “good progress on the infrastructure and adoption priorities needed to deliver it."
The Emirati advanced technology ministry and the project’s other American partners – Nvidia, Oracle and Cisco – did not respond to comment requests. Japan’s SoftBank declined to comment.
IRAN TARGETS U.S.-LINKED TECH INFRASTRUCTURE
Emirati officials began reviewing their AI infrastructure plans soon after Tehran started firing missiles and drones at Gulf neighbors that host American forces in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli airstrikes against Iran, the sources told Reuters.
Two Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE were damaged in the attacks in March along with one in Bahrain. The company’s cloud computing services in the region are still disrupted, according to the latest updates on its website.
In April, Iran’s armed forces issued a video warning that Stargate UAE was also a potential target. The video included a map purporting to show where the complex is being built, with the caption: “Nothing stays hidden from our sight.”
Two people familiar with the matter confirmed the location at a site near Al Dhafra Air Base, which was not publicly known. The base on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi hosts U.S. troops and has been targeted during the war, which began in February.
Daniel Benaim, who served as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Arabian Peninsula affairs under President Joe Biden, said the conflict has been an "economic earthquake" for Gulf states, which had long marketed themselves as safe havens.
“Changes to harden critical infrastructure are vitally necessary,” said Benaim, a fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank. “Every country in the region is going to look at what they can do to reduce the risk” and reassure international partners and investors.
The first phase of construction at the UAE’s AI campus is expected to continue as planned, although with some modifications to protect the site from aerial attacks, according to an industry executive and another person briefed on the matter. The rest of the project will likely be spread across multiple locations, they said.
In addition to building underground, officials are considering putting facilities that host the most sensitive data, such as that used by the military, inside mountains, the two said. In the United States, China and Europe, data centers have been built inside disused mines, Cold-war era bunkers or caves.
The UAE, located on the southeastern Arabian Peninsula, is mostly flat, desert terrain. But there are mountain ranges running through parts of the north and northeast in the Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah emirates.
Air defense systems are being incorporated into the redesign, including drone and missile interceptors and electronic jamming equipment, three sources said. Other likely measures include the use of blast-resistant concrete and the addition of backup power and cooling systems, another said.
(Writing by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Alexandra Zavis)
