Gulf countries are keen to grow their industrial base and are pouring hundreds of billions into data centres and AI infrastructure to write the next chapter of their new-age economies. However, none of that is possible without the very basic resource: water.
The UAE, the Arab world's second-largest economy, is leading the race for AI investment. The capital, Abu Dhabi, is building Stargate UAE, a massive 1 gigawatt artificial intelligence supercomputing and data centre project, expected to cost more than $30 billion.
AI-related investments for 2024-2025 in the UAE exceeded Dh543 billion ($147.9 billion), with global firms including Microsoft and KKR announcing major investments in the UAE.
Availability of water is critical for the UAE and its peers' push to expand their industrial base and lead the global AI and data centre race.
Essential element
While water is an essential operational element to cool heat-generating data centres and water-guzzling industrial units, growth in population across the Gulf countries is also set to boost demand.
Data centres, consisting of incredibly powerful servers with thousands of central processing units and graphic-processing chips, need to stay cool to avoid overheating. Chilled water systems and refrigeration towers, or air cooling, is required to keep temperatures in data centres in check.
A typical data centre uses 300,000 gallons of water each day, equivalent to the demands of about 1,000 households, but large data centres can use an estimated 5 million gallons of water daily, equivalent to the needs of a town of up to 50,000 residents, according to Brookings, a public policy think tank.
Apart from the data centre push, the UAE is home to major industrial projects and more are on the cards under the country Make It In The Emirates push, an initiative aimed at broadening the industrial base and cutting reliance on international supply chains.
The UAE is targeting an increase in the industrial sector's contribution to the country's gross domestic product of Dh300 billion by 2031, from Dh133 billion-level achieved in 2021.
The global usage of water for industries is estimated at 20 per cent of the world's total water consumption.
The UAE does not see water shortages affecting its new economy ambitions, with new desalination plants expected to meet the rapidly rising demand, Abdulaziz Alobaidli, director general for regulatory affairs at Abu Dhabi's Department of Energy, told The National in an interview.
“We rely on desalination [plants] that have proven in the last 50 years to be a very reliable source for potable water,” he said.
Abu Dhabi is currently building a desalination plant in Shuweihat, while another desalination project was commissioned in the second quarter of this year.
If required, the emirate is ready to build one more plant depending on demand, Mr Alobaidli said.
He said safeguarding the source of water protecting the seas remains the top priority and is vital for reliable future supply.
“The first line of defence is protecting the source and the source for us is the sea, the ocean. How to protect it from pollution? How to protect the ecosystem in it … and make it resilient … to threats,” he said.
The UAE, he said, has more than one source of water, which bolsters resilience of its supply systems.
“We have access both to the Arabian Gulf, as well as Gulf of Oman, and in time of constraints you have a diversity that helps you to maintain the resilience,” Mr Alobaidli said.
There were fears of “potentially catastrophic” threats to the Gulf’s marine environment in the wake of the Iran war, with the UAE in April warning that missiles, drones and fires “may give rise to large-scale marine pollution involving oil, hazardous noxious substances, contaminated firefighting water, soot deposition” and other threats to the ecosystem.
The region relies on desalinated seawater, and any contamination could also lead to “severe water security implications”, it added.
Desalination plants were attacked in Bahrain and Kuwait in March, which brought Gulf water security into focus.
Water stress
Populations in the Gulf region are growing at a rapid pace, putting pressure on policymakers to continue investing in maintaining robust supply.
At the end of last year, Saudi Arabia’s population reached 37 million, while the UAE’s grew to about 11.5 million, according to World Bank data.
The UAE’s population is projected to reach 15.3 million by 2050, while expected growth in the kingdom will push the population figure to about 47.7 million, Worldometer data suggests.
Gulf countries are ranked among the most water-stressed in the world, according to World Resource Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas.
The Middle East holds only 2 per cent of the world's renewable freshwater and 83 per cent of the region faces severe water scarcity. WRI estimates 100 per cent of the region’s population will face acute water scarcity by 2050.
However, countries in the region are boosting investment to cope with the rise in demand.
Size of spending
According to latest Nature journal data, the Middle East has spent $53.4 billion between 2006 and 2024, representing about 47.5 per cent of total global capex on increasing desalination capacity.
The broader region is also expected to spend a further $26 billion up to 2028, with desalination capacity projected to reach 41 million cubic metres per day by then.
“Ranging from around 40 per cent in the UAE to roughly 90 per cent in Kuwait and Oman, the Gulf states are critically dependent on desalinated water for their water consumption and security,” Mannat Jaspal, director and fellow of climate and energy at the Dubai-based Observer Research Foundation Middle East, told The National.
“Investments are expected to rise from $5.28 billion in 2023 to $8.43 billion by 2030 across desalination, wastewater reuse and resource-management efficiency, and sustainability amid population, urbanisation and increasing economic pressures.
Saudi focus
Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, is seeking to diversify its economy away from oil, with multi-billion-dollar investments in building new infrastructure, real estate and industrial projects.
The kingdom is also pursuing its AI ambitions, with $40 billion allocated to related ventures, including Humain, the flagship platform for national AI infrastructure.
Qatar set up a company called Qai, a unit of the Qatar Investment Authority, to invest, develop and manage AI infrastructure in the country and abroad.
The UAE’s AI sector alone could require about 61 billion litres of water a year by 2030, while Saudi Arabia’s data-centre power demand is expected to grow by 29 per cent annually, Abdalftah Ali, visiting junior fellow, and Mohammad Hawash, former senior research assistant at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said in a joint report published in April.
New tech
With demand for water consistently on the rise, several Gulf-based companies have started testing next-generation cooling systems that are suited to extreme heat.
Companies such as Khazna in Abu Dhabi, and DataVolt and Alfanar in Saudi Arabia have tested or deployed liquid cooling and other high-efficiency solutions that can “cut water use for cooling by up to 90 per cent while also lowering electricity demand”, Mr Ali and Mr Hawash wrote.
The region’s rapid expansion of renewable energy is also expected to support these efforts by shrinking the indirect water footprint of digital growth.
Tens of billions of dollars in announced solar and wind projects across the region reduce the water intensity of electricity supply, since photovoltaic and wind power consume negligible operational water compared with gas- or oil-fired generation.
“Integrating renewable energy with desalination can help reduce both the energy intensity and cost of water production, while digital technologies can improve demand forecasting, detect leakages and enable more efficient management of water networks,” Ms Jaspal said.
“Over the longer term, however, the region needs to move from augmenting water supply to fundamentally managing water demand. And for this, water security should be approached as a regional rather than purely a national challenge,” she added.
