Accenture and AWS step up Middle East push into cloud and AI
Accenture has signed a six-year agreement with Amazon Web Services to help businesses and governments across the Middle East accelerate their shift to cloud computing and artificial intelligence. It comes as Gulf nations are increasing investment in the infrastructure needed to support an AI-driven economy. The agreement covers the modernisation of legacy technology, migration of critical…
Accenture and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have partnered to aid businesses and governments across the Middle East in accelerating their transition to cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI). This six-year agreement aims to modernize legacy technology, migrate critical workloads to the cloud, and deploy AI across various sectors, including energy, financial services, and government.
Imran Sayyed, managing director and AWS Business Group lead at Accenture Middle East and Africa, notes the significant shift occurring in the region.
Gulf nations are heavily investing in the necessary infrastructure to support an AI-driven economy. The UAE, in particular, is leading this push. Abu Dhabi is constructing the 5-gigawatt UAE-US AI Campus, which will include the 1GW Stargate UAE cluster, expected to be completed in the third quarter. The 5GW campus is projected to cost over $30 billion.
Saudi Arabia is also ramping up its capacity, with operational data centre capacity reaching 467MW in the first quarter of 2023, up from 68MW in 2021, as it aims to establish itself as another major global center for AI computing.
Humain, an AI company backed by the Public Investment Fund, plans to deploy up to 6GW of data center capacity by 2034, with the first 250MW expected to launch in 2027. In Saudi Arabia, Humain and digital infrastructure company DataVolt are developing 100MW of AI infrastructure at Oxagon, a city in Neom's industrial zone on the Red Sea.
This first phase is anticipated to become operational by 2028, with the broader DataVolt campus aiming for 1.5GW. AWS is also increasing its presence in the kingdom, with its first Saudi cloud infrastructure region launching in December, representing more than $5.3 billion in investment. This aligns with concerns over the resilience of the region's cloud infrastructure, as drone strikes damaged AWS data centre facilities in the UAE and Bahrain in March, underscoring the importance of redundancy amidst growing cloud and AI workloads.
Written by urgent.news from The National UAE's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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