Egypt moves to build US$1bil AI data centre with Nvidia’s tech

Egypt plans to construct its inaugural substantial artificial intelligence (AI) data center, intending to establish a 200-megawatt facility valued at US$1 billion, employing Nvidia technology, Egyptian Communications and Information Technology Minister announced on Wednesday. The project, spearheaded by a partnership between Vodafone Business, Elsewedy Electric, and Cassava Technologies - Nvidia's primary African partner, aims to begin with a 20-megawatt facility worth US$200 million in its initial three-year phase.

This initiative capitalizes on Nvidia's accelerated computing technologies and follows intense competition between global AI powerhouses, the United States and China. Nvidia, the world's most valuable publicly traded company, is central to the present AI surge, with its graphics processing units (GPUs) housed in data centers worldwide utilized for training AI models.

In response to China's President Xi Jinping's visit to Egypt last week, Bloomberg previously reported a bid from Huawei to build a data center in Egypt, prompting the United States to present a competing offer from Nvidia, AMD, and Microsoft. Despite a lack of concrete agreements, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Chinese President Xi agreed to expand cooperation on artificial intelligence and technology.

Egypt, the most populous Arab nation and Africa's second-largest economy, has faced persistent energy deficits, exacerbated by its regional ambition to become a significant AI data center hub.