The Stargate UAE data centre project will cost more than $30 billion to build and be at the centre of plans to grow artificial intelligence alliances around the world, Omar Al Olama, Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, has said.
The development of the 5-gigawatt Stargate UAE – backed by some of the world's biggest technology companies – proves the Emirates' ambitions to be at the forefront of the AI revolution, he said at the Machines Can Think summit in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Stargate is “the most famous piece of evidence … to not just ensure that we're able to build international co-operation when it comes to AI infrastructure, but also to build something that no one has the audacity to dream of”, Mr Al Olama said.
The campus will be “larger than Monaco that is going to cost more than $30 billion to build”, he said.
Stargate UAE will be built over 19.2 square kilometres in Abu Dhabi and is more than nine times the size of the principality of Monaco, the world's second smallest country. The project's latest cost estimate is 50 per cent more than the initial forecast in the $20 billion range in the spring of 2025.
The UAE is also heavily leaning on its growing expertise in developing large language models, the underlying technology powering generative AI, and is keen on helping other nations with their sovereign AI needs, Mr Al Olama said.
The Emirates has successfully developed models such as Core42's Jais and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence's K2 Think, signalling the country's ability to compete in the fast-evolving AI landscape.
“The UAE kept exporting to ensure that countries that do not have the ability to build these models are able to leverage on what the UAE has created,” Mr Al Olama said, noting the economic benefits of these AI models.
“Certain players, whether it's [from the] private or government sector, can create foundational models to a world where this is going to be consolidated and there's going to be a few predominant models in the world,” he said.
Data sovereignty is becoming key for nations as it gives them legal control over the data within their jurisdictions.
“We want to ensure that countries … have an option that does not look for profit and does not look for specific commercial gains, but focuses on giving all these countries sovereign options,” Mr Al Olama said.
These are sovereign options that they can “build on top of, can train and fine-tune, and build partnerships with – and we want to be the partner of these countries that want to build these models.”
Construction work on the first phase of Stargate UAE is “going full steam ahead” and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2026, Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala said last month.
It is being developed by Khazna Data Centres, a unit of Abu Dhabi AI major G42, with OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco and SoftBank. South Korea has also joined the project.
