Data centre expansion in the Gulf is raising a question that matters to every citizen who relies on digital services: where is our data kept, who controls it, and how safe is it when conflict reaches civilian infrastructure?
Oracle, the technology company behind cloud regions in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE and in Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, is adding more data centres in both countries as demand for AI services accelerates. “I can tell you that we’re growing the number of data centres we have in the UAE and Saudi,” Cormac Watters, executive vice president of applications for Oracle Europe, Middle East, and Africa, told The National at Oracle AI World in Las Vegas. The company has added a couple of new facilities over the past six months. More will follow in the next six. “The demand is huge, so that’s what’s driving it.”
For the public, the stakes are straightforward. Government bodies, banks and businesses run on these systems, and where their data physically sits shapes how well protected ordinary people’s records and services actually are. That question has grown sharper in a region still living with conflict. Gulf states, among them Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the Arab world’s two biggest economies, faced Iranian attacks on civilian infrastructure during the regional war that began on February 28. The states are now recovering. Saudi Arabia, however, continues to face attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Security concerns, Mr Watters said, limit what Oracle can disclose about its facilities. “We’re reluctant to explain where they all are because of the [geopolitical] situation … We don’t want any bad actors to somehow figure it out.” Oracle had already announced plans for a data centre in Saudi Arabia’s Neom megaproject.
Meanwhile, sovereignty, meaning domestic production and deployment of AI using local infrastructure, data, models and talent, has become the first topic in customer conversations. “From the business side … customers are deciding that if it’s just a normal routine purchase, they’re waiting, if it’s a strategic transformation, they’re wanting to keep going,” Mr Watters said. A central question, he noted, is where data is stored and “who has the big kill switch, or who doesn’t have the big kill switch?”
A newer theme is the physical threat to the data centres themselves. “Because of the physical threat of a data centre being hit … they’re talking about digital embassy,” Mr Watters said. The concept would let a sovereign cloud physically located in one city be lifted and transported to another country while keeping its sovereignty, much as an embassy retains its home country’s legal status. Such an arrangement is doable today, particularly for globally positioned companies like Oracle, though some entities, such as banks, would need regulatory approval. “It’s very complex. Digital emphasis and sovereignty is becoming the future,” he said.
The Middle East is currently Oracle’s fastest-growing part of its wider Europe, Middle East, and Africa region. Beyond the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the company sees opportunities in Qatar and Kuwait. Syria, as it opens its economy, is becoming an “interesting” market, though Oracle may approach it through a distributor partnership.
Mr Watters remains bullish. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar last year announced AI investment plans exceeding 5 per cent of GDP, about $120 billion according to the International Monetary Fund. “I think the Middle East and UAE organisations are probably faster at adopting it [AI] than anyone else,” he said, attributing the pace to a mindset unburdened by decades-old legacy systems. “They see innovation all around them every day, every month, every year … that’s not the same pace everywhere else.”
Whether the region can keep that pace while protecting the physical and digital infrastructure its citizens depend on is the open question the next six months of expansion will begin to answer. Further coverage of the expansion can be found at https://www.thenationalnews.com/future/technology/2026/10/29/oracle-opening-more-data-centres-in-uae-and-saudi-arabia-as-ai-demand-soars/