FROM ENERGY EXPORTER TO DIGITAL POWERHOUSE:
THE MENA DATA CENTER OPPORTUNITY

How the Middle East and North Africa Can Convert Energy, Geography and Capital into a Competitive Digital Infrastructure Industry

JAFAJ | ECONOMIC AND STRATEGIC ANALYSIS

THE NEXT PHASE OF MENA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

For generations, the economic influence of the Middle East and North Africa has been closely associated with energy. Petroleum and natural gas transformed national economies, financed infrastructure, attracted international investment and established the region as an essential supplier to the global economy.

A new opportunity is emerging. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, financial technology, telecommunications and advanced manufacturing are increasing demand for computing capacity. Behind these technologies is physical infrastructure that is becoming as strategically important as the energy systems supporting modern industry: the data center.

MENA has an opportunity to become a major international center for this infrastructure. The region combines substantial energy resources, expanding renewable generation, sovereign investment capital, strategic geography and governments pursuing economic diversification. These advantages could support a network of data centers serving customers across the Gulf, Europe, Africa and Asia.

The strategic principle is straightforward: secure dependable energy first, build computing infrastructure second, and connect markets third. The opportunity is not simply to construct buildings filled with servers. It is to develop an integrated industry linking power generation, electricity transmission, telecommunications, artificial intelligence and international finance.

THE GLOBAL DEMAND SIGNAL—AND THE REGIONAL MARKET

The International Energy Agency estimates that global data-center electricity consumption was approximately 485 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025 and could reach about 950 TWh by 2030. AI-focused data-center consumption is projected to triple over that period. The IEA also cautions that near-term growth may be constrained by bottlenecks in power equipment, chips and infrastructure. [1]

The commercial demand signal is visible in regional spending. Gartner forecast MENA data-center systems spending of approximately US$12.984 billion in 2026, up 37.3% from 2025. This is spending on data-center systems—not a forecast of revenue available to a new MENA facility, and not equivalent to colocation or cloud-service revenue. It nevertheless indicates a rapidly expanding regional investment market. [2]

A separate industry outlook, the MENA Energy Outlook 2026, estimates combined installed data-center capacity in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar at approximately 1,237 MW in 2026, rising to about 2,036 MW by 2028. These figures are market estimates and projections, not audited operating capacity. They show that the Gulf market is already developing a material footprint and that competition will intensify. [3]

The commercial question is therefore not whether demand for computing is increasing. It is whether a proposed facility can secure customers, power, connectivity and a cost structure that allows it to compete with existing and announced capacity.

Potential customer segments include global cloud and hyperscale providers; AI model developers and GPU-compute operators; regional telecommunications companies; banks and payment networks; energy companies; hospitals and health systems; manufacturers and logistics operators; and government agencies with secure data-residency requirements. These are target segments, not confirmed customers. No construction decision should treat a customer category as a signed contract.

Before capital is committed, developers should identify anchor customers and obtain evidence of demand: letters of intent, requests for proposal, capacity reservations, pre-leases, minimum-revenue commitments or long-term take-or-pay agreements. The diligence process should distinguish training workloads, which may tolerate greater geographic flexibility, from latency-sensitive inference, financial transactions and government services that require proximity to users and regulatory approval.

US BACKLASH CREATES A WINDOW—NOT A VACUUM

The MENA investment case has gained a new strategic dimension: the United States remains a major center of data-center investment, but local resistance, electricity-grid constraints and permitting uncertainty are making some American projects more difficult to site and deliver. This does not mean that the United States has adopted a national anti-data-center policy. Federal policy continues to promote data-center development as part of the artificial-intelligence and technology agenda, while opposition is increasingly visible at state and municipal levels. [11][13]

The scale of the local backlash is material. In October 2026, Reuters reported that voters in 38 U.S. local jurisdictions were preparing to consider at least 41 measures that could delay, prohibit or impose additional requirements on data centers. S&P Global reported that local governments in 40 states had active bans or moratoria, that 294 local moratoria and bans had been adopted from January through July, and that more than 50 projects had been canceled during 2026 amid community opposition. These figures describe different measures and reporting periods; they should not be added together or treated as a single official national count. [11][12]

The November 3, 2026 election reinforced the political risk. The Washington Post reported that more than 20 local ballot measures restricting or regulating data-center development passed, including strong votes for restrictions in several communities. The results do not establish a nationwide prohibition, but they demonstrate that local approval has become a material project risk in multiple markets. [14]

The underlying concerns are practical: large electricity loads, pressure on transmission infrastructure, possible effects on household power bills, water consumption, land use, noise, tax incentives and whether communities receive sufficient local benefits. The Congressional Research Service notes that the federal government is pursuing policies to promote data-center development, while also documenting growing local opposition and concerns about grid investment, electricity prices and reliability. It also reports that some utilities cannot accommodate new requests until additional generation, transmission or distribution infrastructure is built. [13]

This creates an opening for MENA—not because American demand is disappearing, but because some developers and customers may seek additional locations where power, land, permitting and long-term operating conditions can be secured more predictably. Reuters reported that U.S. data-center capacity under construction increased 48% between December 2025 and June 2026, despite the backlash. The more defensible conclusion is therefore that the United States remains a growth market, but the location of future capacity may become more geographically diversified. [11]

MENA can compete if it turns its potential advantages into documented operating commitments: reserved and deliverable power; transparent tariffs; dedicated transmission; suitable land; predictable approvals; reliable fiber routes; credible water and cooling plans; enforceable contracts; and stable rules for data protection and cross-border transfers. A government announcement or low headline electricity price is not enough. Investors need bankable power agreements, confirmed permits, anchor customers and independently verified site conditions.

The opportunity is strongest for workloads that can be placed flexibly across regions, including AI model training, batch processing, cloud capacity, backup and disaster recovery, and selected enterprise workloads. Latency-sensitive inference, financial transactions, healthcare and government data may require facilities closer to users or within specific legal jurisdictions. Customer discovery must therefore identify which workloads can realistically be served from each proposed MENA location.

The competitive proposition should be framed as additional capacity and geographic diversification—not as a wholesale replacement for U.S. facilities. A MENA platform could serve global customers, strengthen regional digital sovereignty, diversify infrastructure risk and attract investment that might otherwise face delays in constrained markets. But it must demonstrate competitive total cost, connectivity, cybersecurity, regulatory credibility and dependable operations.

The strategic lesson for MENA governments is direct: the U.S. backlash is an opportunity only for countries that can offer a better, more predictable project environment while protecting local communities. If electricity costs are shifted to households, water resources are overcommitted, permits are opaque or contracts are unreliable, MENA will reproduce the same opposition that is complicating development in the United States.

A REGIONAL STRATEGY, NOT A SINGLE-COUNTRY PROJECT

The strongest model is a multinational network in which countries perform different functions according to their resources, infrastructure, connectivity, customer access and investment environments. The five-country strategy assessed here is complementary rather than exclusive: Saudi Arabia for scale, the UAE for commercial and financial coordination, Qatar for specialized energy-backed computing, Morocco for a Europe–Africa gateway, and Oman for connectivity and resilience.

GOVERNMENT STABILITY AND DOMESTIC SECURITY: INVESTMENT ADVANTAGES

Government stability and domestic security are not secondary political considerations. They are core economic inputs for infrastructure requiring large initial investment, long construction periods and dependable operations over decades.

Investors need confidence that public authorities can maintain institutional continuity, administer predictable regulation, protect contracts and property rights, enforce commercial agreements and provide a workable process for resolving disputes. Government effectiveness, regulatory quality and rule of law matter alongside political stability. A stable government does not automatically guarantee strong investor protections; those protections must be tested in law and in practice.

Domestic terrorist activity is a separate consideration. The 2026 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) reports scores of zero for Morocco and Qatar, 0.749 for the UAE, 0.443 for Saudi Arabia and 2.282 for Oman. Under the GTI methodology, a zero score means no measured impact in the index for the period assessed; it does not prove that a country has no security threats or that a particular facility is safe. The index uses a five-year weighted assessment of incidents, fatalities, injuries and hostages. [4]

These data support a careful conclusion: the five countries have relatively low measured terrorism impact in the 2026 GTI compared with many conflict-affected markets, but they are not interchangeable and should not be described as risk-free. Oman’s score is higher than those of the other four countries in this group, while Morocco and Qatar record zero in the index. A site-level threat assessment remains necessary.

Political stability and domestic terrorism must also be distinguished from interstate military exposure. A country may have durable institutions and low domestic terrorist activity while remaining vulnerable to missile or drone attacks, regional escalation, disruption of shipping lanes or attacks on energy infrastructure. Cyber intrusion, insider threats and sabotage require still another set of controls.

The World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators provide a comparative framework covering political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption, and voice and accountability. The indicators are perception-based estimates, not definitive investment ratings; the World Bank cautions against using them as stand-alone criteria for financial decisions. [5]

PRELIMINARY COUNTRY INVESTMENT SCREENING

The following matrix is a screening framework, not a numerical ranking or a substitute for country-specific legal, engineering, insurance and security diligence. GTI scores are included as a comparative terrorism-impact indicator; they do not measure interstate conflict, cyber risk or facility security.

Country	Potential role	GTI 2026 score	Institutional / commercial proposition	Key diligence issue	Preliminary fit
Saudi Arabia	Hyperscale campuses and domestic AI capacity	0.443	Scale, capital, national AI ambitions and large domestic market	Firm power, water/cooling, customer commitments, regional military exposure	High potential; site-dependent
UAE	Regional headquarters, finance, colocation and cloud	0.749	International finance, operator ecosystem, connectivity and business access	Power availability, land costs, competition, data regulation and regional exposure	High potential; commercially mature
Qatar	Specialized AI/HPC, energy and government workloads	0.000	Energy resources, sovereign capital and focused national demand	Market scale, customer concentration, power allocation and redundancy	Complementary specialist role
Morocco	Renewable-oriented Europe–Africa gateway	0.000	Renewable capacity, geographic position and growing digital ambitions	Transmission, water, cable routes, land/legal status and project execution	Promising; infrastructure diligence essential
Oman	Connectivity, disaster recovery and regional redundancy	2.282	Arabian Sea location, cable infrastructure and diversification agenda	Smaller market, power/cooling economics, customer pipeline and security	Strategic resilience option

The GTI figures above are from the 2026 report. They should not be read as a complete country-risk ranking. For the final investment screen, the project team should extract the latest World Bank WGI values for all five countries and place them beside GTI scores, electricity tariffs and reliability data, sovereign and commercial credit indicators, regulatory protections, water stress, fiber routes, and insurance availability. The matrix should be refreshed at each investment-committee gate.

SAUDI ARABIA: THE HYPERSCALE OPPORTUNITY

Saudi Arabia is a leading candidate for large-scale computing infrastructure. Its advantages include substantial energy resources, major electricity-generation infrastructure, national investment capacity, industrial development areas and growing demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

The country’s national AI ambitions and financing initiatives provide a potential foundation for hyperscale campuses. The MENA Energy Outlook estimates Saudi Arabia’s combined data-center capacity at approximately 594 MW in 2026, rising to 854 MW by 2028; these are estimates and projections, not verified operating totals. [3]

Saudi Arabia’s strongest potential role is to host large computing campuses serving domestic and international customers. The investment case must nevertheless be tested against written electricity allocations, transmission capacity, water availability, cooling design, land rights, customer commitments, insurance terms and exposure to regional escalation. Energy reserves alone do not establish a viable data-center site.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: THE COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL CENTER

The UAE offers a different advantage: an established financial sector, international business relationships, telecommunications infrastructure and experienced data-center operators. Abu Dhabi and Dubai provide access to international investors, technology companies, financial institutions and government decision-makers.

The UAE is a strong candidate for the regional commercial headquarters and for facilities serving customers that value international connectivity and proximity to Gulf markets. The MENA Energy Outlook estimates combined UAE data-center capacity at approximately 520 MW in 2026, rising to 957 MW by 2028. [3]

The recommendation is to evaluate the UAE as the platform’s commercial and financial center while locating computing facilities across more than one country. This avoids concentrating the entire network in one jurisdiction, but the UAE should not be presumed to have unlimited power, land or cooling capacity. Every proposed site needs a binding utility assessment.

QATAR: ENERGY-BACKED SPECIALIZED COMPUTING

Qatar’s natural gas industry, financial resources and experience in major energy projects make it a candidate for specialized computing infrastructure. Potential applications include high-performance computing, AI services, government workloads, financial infrastructure and energy-sector data processing.

The MENA Energy Outlook estimates Qatar’s combined data-center capacity at approximately 122 MW in 2026, rising to 225 MW by 2028. [3] Qatar’s role may therefore be complementary rather than a direct substitute for the largest Saudi or UAE campuses. A focused facility tied to identified customers and secure power could be more commercially defensible than an oversized project built ahead of demand.

MOROCCO: THE EUROPE–AFRICA DIGITAL GATEWAY

Morocco provides an alternative to the Gulf development model. Its geographic position, renewable-energy program and access to European and African markets make it a candidate for renewable-oriented data-center development.

Morocco’s Ministry of Economy and Finance reported that installed electricity-generation capacity reached 12,314 MW in 2025, with renewable sources accounting for 46.1% of installed capacity. Installed capacity is not the same as actual electricity generation or firm power available at a particular site. The same report recorded national electricity demand of 49 TWh and peak demand of 7,990 MW in 2025. [6]

The government is advancing the Igoudar Numérique green data-center campus at Dakhla, with a target capacity of 500 MW. A partnership convention for operationalizing the initiative was signed in April 2026. This is a government-backed development initiative, not evidence that a 500 MW facility is already operating or fully financed. [7]

Morocco’s opportunity is to connect European and African customers while supporting digital development and renewable-energy investment. The project case must verify transmission capacity, firm electricity, water requirements, fiber routes, financing, land and legal status, and the implementation timetable. Any project in Dakhla also requires careful legal and geopolitical diligence.

OMAN: CONNECTIVITY AND STRATEGIC DIVERSIFICATION

Oman’s location along the Arabian Sea offers access to international communications routes connecting Europe, Africa and Asia. Existing data-center and submarine-cable infrastructure demonstrates that the country is developing relevant digital assets.

Oman could serve as a connectivity, disaster-recovery and specialized-computing location. Its strongest contribution may be geographic redundancy and additional access to international telecommunications networks rather than competing directly for the largest hyperscale campus.

The 2026 GTI score for Oman is 2.282, higher than the other four countries in this five-country comparison. That does not make Oman unsuitable; it reinforces the need for a transparent security assessment that considers domestic incidents, cross-border exposure, critical infrastructure and the particular site. [4]

ELECTRICITY: THE CENTRAL INVESTMENT TEST

A country may possess enormous petroleum or natural-gas reserves, but those resources do not automatically translate into dependable electricity at a competitive delivered price. Data centers require firm power, reliable transmission, backup systems and the ability to expand capacity as customer demand grows.

Consider an illustrative facility with 100 MW of IT capacity. At a planning Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.30, full-load utility demand would be approximately 130 MW. At 90% average IT utilization, annual electricity consumption would be about 1.025 TWh. This is an illustrative planning calculation, not an engineering design.

IT capacity	Approx. utility capacity at PUE 1.30	Annual electricity at 90% IT utilization
100 MW	130 MW	1.02 TWh
250 MW	325 MW	2.56 TWh
500 MW	650 MW	5.12 TWh
1,000 MW	1,300 MW	10.25 TWh

At the 100 MW example’s 1.025 TWh annual consumption, every US$10 per megawatt-hour change in delivered electricity price changes annual electricity expense by approximately US$10.25 million. The actual bill will depend on load profile, tariff structure, demand charges, taxes, grid fees, power-purchase agreements and backup arrangements.

The development strategy should combine long-term utility agreements, redundant transmission, backup generation, storage and renewable procurement where commercially practical. Cooling and water are equally important. High ambient temperatures and water scarcity require efficient cooling technologies, closed-loop systems, recycled or non-potable water where suitable, and a site-specific water-stress assessment.

The World Economic Forum’s October 2026 regional analysis reinforces this systems approach. It reports that new data centers in MENA could connect to the grid within two to five years, compared with more than ten years in mature markets, while cooling can account for more than 40% of data-center electricity consumption globally. These are regional and global benchmarks, not guaranteed timelines or cooling shares for an individual site. They strengthen the case for site-specific grid, cooling and water diligence. [9]

A project should not be approved simply because electricity is inexpensive. Its full environmental, grid, water and operating requirements must be commercially and socially sustainable.

SECURITY IS AN INVESTMENT REQUIREMENT

Data centers may contain financial information, government records, healthcare data, business intelligence and computing resources essential to national economies. Their security must be designed into the project rather than added after construction.

The assessment should separate four risks: domestic terrorism and politically motivated violence; interstate conflict and attacks on critical infrastructure; cyber intrusion and operational-technology compromise; and physical sabotage, insider threats or supply-chain disruption. Each requires different evidence, controls and insurance treatment.

The 2026 GTI provides a useful comparative measure of terrorism impact, but it does not establish whether a specific facility is protected against missile or drone attacks, cyber operations or sabotage. The World Bank WGI addresses institutional and governance dimensions, not physical facility protection. [4][5]

The regional network should avoid dependence on one country, electricity corridor, telecommunications provider or physical access route. Minimum requirements should include independent security audits, hardened power and cooling systems, network segmentation, access controls, business-interruption insurance, geographically separate data replication, tested disaster-recovery plans and incident-response exercises.

Geographic diversification is not merely a commercial advantage. It is an operational necessity.

COMMERCIAL MODEL: WHO PAYS, AND FOR WHAT?

The platform should diversify revenue across several services, but each service needs a distinct customer proposition and proof of demand.

• Colocation: secure rack, cage or data-hall space, power and interconnection for enterprises and telecom operators.
• Wholesale powered capacity: long-term capacity leases or powered-shell agreements for hyperscalers and large cloud providers.
• AI and GPU computing: reserved or metered access to accelerators, high-density racks and managed compute for AI developers, research institutions and enterprises.
• Cloud and managed services: storage, processing, backup, cybersecurity and managed infrastructure for regional organizations.
• Government and regulated workloads: secure hosting for public agencies, banks, healthcare systems and other regulated users, subject to data-residency and procurement rules.
• Disaster recovery and continuity: geographically separate backup capacity and recovery services for institutions that cannot tolerate prolonged outages.
• Telecommunications and interconnection: carrier-neutral connectivity, cross-connects, cable landing access and network exchange services.

The commercial model should not assume that all these revenue streams will be available from the first day. A first facility should be designed around one or two anchor customer segments, with expansion options for adjacent services. The operator must establish utilization assumptions, contracted power cost, rack density, cooling cost, customer credit quality, equipment refresh cycles and the expected price decline of computing services.

Gartner’s forecast of US$12.984 billion in MENA data-center systems spending in 2026 is evidence of a growing regional market, but it is not the addressable revenue pool for this project. A bankable demand model must be built bottom-up from customer interviews, procurement plans, signed commitments, competing capacity, pricing and realistic absorption rates. [2]

INVESTMENT STRUCTURE: BUILD A PLATFORM, NOT A MONOLITH

A multinational network should use a regional holding company supported by separate national project companies. The UAE may be considered for the commercial headquarters, while national subsidiaries own or operate facilities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Morocco and Oman, subject to tax, legal, ownership and regulatory advice.

Each national company should maintain separate land agreements, permits, electricity contracts, financing, insurance, customer agreements and audited accounts. This allows investors to participate in individual facilities or the broader platform, keeps country-specific risks visible and permits expansion without requiring every facility to be built simultaneously.

JLL’s 2026 global benchmark forecasts average shell-and-core construction costs of approximately US$11.3 million per MW. JLL notes that this excludes land and active IT equipment; AI technology fit-out can cost as much as US$25 million per MW. Applied mechanically, the shell-and-core benchmark implies approximately US$1.13 billion for a 100 MW facility before land, power infrastructure beyond the benchmark scope, IT equipment, financing and other project costs. This is a global reference—not a MENA quotation or a project budget. [8]

A credible financial model must separately identify land, shell and core, grid connection, generation and storage, cooling, water, fiber, active IT equipment, security, insurance, financing costs, taxes, operating expenses and replacement capital. It must model phased construction and downside cases, including delayed power, delayed customer occupancy, lower utilization, higher interest rates and technology obsolescence.

At this stage, a defensible project return, internal rate of return, payback period or total capital requirement cannot be established without site-specific engineering, customer commitments and an independently reviewed financial model.

GOVERNMENT ACTIONS REQUIRED TO ATTRACT INVESTMENT

Governments can materially improve the investment case by reducing uncertainty. The following measures should be treated as a practical policy compact between the state, utilities, regulators and project sponsors.

1. Publish a transparent data-center investment framework identifying eligible zones, licensing authorities, approval timelines, tax treatment and foreign-ownership rules.
2. Provide written, site-specific power-availability statements, including firm capacity, delivery date, tariff structure, grid-upgrade responsibility and curtailment rules.
3. Create a single government coordination office to manage land, planning, environmental approvals, water, utilities, telecoms and security clearances.
4. Establish predictable data-protection, cybersecurity, cross-border data-transfer and data-residency rules, with clear treatment of government and regulated workloads.
5. Protect contracts and property rights through enforceable dispute-resolution mechanisms, transparent public-private partnership rules and clear treatment of repatriation and currency risk.
6. Publish water-use and cooling requirements for large facilities, including standards for recycled water, desalination, discharge and drought conditions.
7. Develop critical-infrastructure security protocols covering physical protection, cyber incident reporting, emergency response and coordination with utilities and telecommunications operators.
8. Offer incentives only where measurable public benefits are demonstrated, such as local employment, skills development, renewable-energy additions, technology transfer and domestic supplier participation.

This approach is consistent with the International Energy Agency’s 2026 policy review, which emphasizes proactive management of data-center connection queues, coordination of grid investment with realistic demand forecasts, fair allocation of network-upgrade costs, and greater use of flexible onsite assets and demand response. These are policy principles, not a claim that every measure is already in place in the five countries assessed. [10]

Incentives should not substitute for fundamentals. Tax holidays cannot compensate for unreliable power, unclear data rules or weak contract enforcement. The most valuable government contribution is a predictable operating environment supported by infrastructure that can be independently verified.

A DISCIPLINED 180-DAY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Days 1–30: Establish the regional mandate, governance structure, investment data room, project criteria and standardized government information requests.

Days 1–60: Engage governments and utilities to obtain written information on candidate sites, land, firm electricity, tariffs, transmission, water, licensing, incentives and security arrangements.

Days 15–75: Conduct structured customer discovery with cloud providers, AI operators, telecoms, financial institutions, energy companies and government agencies. Seek written expressions of demand and capacity requirements.

Days 30–90: Shortlist no more than three sites for technical, environmental, legal, security, insurance and connectivity screening.

Days 60–120: Prepare a ten-year financial model, phased construction schedule, financing strategy, customer absorption case and downside scenarios.

Days 120–150: Commission independent engineering, market, legal, tax, cybersecurity, water and insurance reviews. Validate all power and customer assumptions.

Days 150–180: Present an investment committee with a documented go-or-no-go recommendation, a site-specific feasibility package, a risk register and a financing plan.

The first diligence group should prioritize Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, advance Morocco as the principal North African renewable-oriented candidate, and retain Oman as a connectivity and resilience option. This is a sequencing recommendation for diligence—not a final ranking of investment attractiveness.

No site should advance to construction approval without: a binding or otherwise bankable power arrangement; a credible anchor customer or contracted demand; confirmed land and permits; independently reviewed engineering and water plans; acceptable legal protections; insurable security exposure; and a fully funded financial model.

STRATEGIC CONCLUSION: THE NEXT EXPORT MAY BE COMPUTING CAPACITY

The Middle East and North Africa have spent decades developing the infrastructure necessary to produce and export energy. The next stage of economic development may be to use that energy to produce something more sophisticated: the computing capacity that supports artificial intelligence, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and the modern digital economy.

Saudi Arabia can provide scale. The UAE can provide international commercial and financial infrastructure. Qatar can contribute specialized, energy-backed computing. Morocco can connect renewable-oriented infrastructure to European and African markets. Oman can strengthen geographic and telecommunications diversification.

The opportunity is substantial, but it is not automatic. Global demand does not guarantee local customers. Petroleum reserves are not firm electricity allocations. Government announcements are not operating facilities. A low terrorism score is not a guarantee against attack. A global construction benchmark is not a local project quotation. The growing U.S. siting backlash creates an opening for additional MENA capacity, but it does not mean American demand or construction is collapsing. MENA must win projects through bankable power, credible regulation, strong connectivity, responsible water management and contracted customers.

The countries that succeed will be those that convert energy resources into reliable electricity, electricity into competitive computing capacity, and computing capacity into measurable economic value. As some U.S. communities become more resistant to new facilities and grid connections remain difficult, MENA has an opportunity to attract a share of the next wave of global investment—provided it can deliver what investors need, not merely promise it. MENA’s next generation of economic influence may not be measured only by how much energy it exports, but by how much of the world’s digital economy it helps power.

JAFAJ ANALYTICAL NOTE

This article combines the original regional investment concept with additional market, governance, terrorism-impact, infrastructure and U.S. siting-policy evidence available as of November 8, 2026. Country roles are strategic screening judgments, not official investment ratings. Market capacity figures from industry outlooks are estimates or projections and should not be treated as audited operating capacity. U.S. opposition figures come from sources using different definitions and reporting periods; they are not a single official national count. The U.S. market continues to expand despite local resistance. The GTI measures terrorism impact using a defined methodology and does not measure interstate military risk, cyber exposure or the security of a specific site. All electricity calculations are illustrative planning estimates. No prospective customer, investor or government commitment should be inferred unless separately documented. The initiative remains a development concept requiring site-specific feasibility studies, binding power arrangements, customer commitments, independent security reviews and a validated financial model.

SELECTED SOURCES

[1] International Energy Agency (IEA). Key Questions on Energy and AI. Paris: IEA, 16 April 2026. Executive summary, “Our updated data centre electricity demand outlook.” The IEA estimates data-centre electricity consumption at 485 TWh in 2025 and 950 TWh in 2030, with AI-focused consumption tripling. https://www.iea.org/reports/key-questions-on-energy-and-ai

[2] Gartner. “Gartner Forecasts MENA IT Spending to Reach $169 Billion in 2026.” Press release, 4 August 2025, Table 1. The table forecasts MENA data-center systems spending of US$12.984 billion in 2026, up 37.3%; this is systems spending, not facility revenue or the addressable market for a single operator. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-08-04-gartner-forecasts-mena-it-spending-to-reach-169-billion-us-dollars-in-2026

[3] Dii Desert Energy. MENA Energy Outlook 2026. January 2026, “Focus box: Data centers – the new super offtakers of clean energy,” Figure 9. Figure 9 reports 2026 estimates and 2028 projections for Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. The figure explicitly credits Roland Berger as its underlying source; Dii is the publication carrying the figure, not the original data producer. Treat the capacity figures as industry estimates/projections, not audited operating totals. https://dii-desertenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/MENA-Energy-Outlook-2026-low-res-2.pdf

[4] Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP). Global Terrorism Index 2026: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism. Sydney: IEP, March 2026, “Overall Results,” pp. 6–7; methodology, pp. 85–86. Scores: Morocco 0.000; Qatar 0.000; UAE 0.749; Saudi Arabia 0.443; Oman 2.282. A score of zero means no measured impact in the index for the reporting period; it is not a guarantee of no threat. The GTI measures terrorism impact, not interstate military exposure, cyber risk or facility security. https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Global-Terrorism-Index-2026-Report.pdf

[5] World Bank. Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), 2026 Update. Dataset and usage advisory; 2026 release covers more than 200 economies and reports annual estimates through 2025 across six governance dimensions. WGI estimates are perception-based and should not be treated as definitive ratings or stand-alone investment-risk measures. The article uses WGI as a framework; it does not assign country scores in this preliminary screening matrix. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/worldwide-governance-indicators

[6] Kingdom of Morocco, Ministry of Economy and Finance. “Board of Directors of the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE).” 2025 performance report, published 2026. Reports installed generation capacity of 12,314 MW, 46.1% renewable installed capacity, 49 TWh electricity demand and 7,990 MW peak demand in 2025. These are national system figures, not site-specific firm power availability. https://www.finances.gov.ma/en/Pages/detail-actualite.aspx?fiche=7799

[7] Kingdom of Morocco, Ministry of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform. “Signature d’une convention pour l’opérationnalisation du campus datacenter vert ‘Igoudar Numérique’ à Dakhla.” 14 April 2026. The ministry describes a partnership convention for a proposed campus with a 500 MW target capacity; this does not establish that the capacity is operating, fully financed or connected to the grid. https://www.mmsp.gov.ma/fr/actualites/signature-d%E2%80%99une-convention-pour-l%E2%80%99op%C3%A9rationnalisation-du-campus-datacenter-vert-%C2%AB-igoudar-num%C3%A9rique-%C2%BB-%C3%A0-dakhla

[8] JLL. 2026 Global Data Center Outlook. 2026, construction-cost section. JLL’s US$11.3 million/MW benchmark is global shell-and-core construction cost; it excludes land and active IT fit-out. JLL separately notes AI technology fit-out may cost as much as US$25 million/MW. Neither figure is a MENA project quotation. https://www.jll.com/en-us/insights/market-outlook/global-data-centers

[9] World Economic Forum (WEF). “AI Could Unlock $1 Trillion for MENA, but Infrastructure Must Keep Pace.” Press release, 14 October 2026, updated 20 October 2026; summarizes the companion report Optimizing Hyperscale Data Centre Infrastructure in MENA, developed with Saudi Research and Media Group (SRMG). The press release reports a two-to-five-year grid-connection estimate for MENA and states that cooling can account for more than 40% of data-center electricity use globally. These are broad benchmarks, not site guarantees. https://www.weforum.org/media/ai-could-unlock-1-trillion-for-mena-but-infrastructure-must-keep-pace

[10] International Energy Agency (IEA). Powering Artificial Intelligence: Strategies for Integrating Data Centres into Electricity Systems. Paris: IEA, 14 October 2026. Policy review covering 34 jurisdictions and principles for grid integration, demand forecasting, cost allocation, flexibility and energy-system reliability. https://www.iea.org/reports/powering-artificial-intelligence

[11] Rozen, Courtney. “AI Data Center Boom Faces Backlash at US Ballot Box.” Reuters, October 29, 2026. Reports that 38 U.S. local jurisdictions were considering at least 41 measures affecting data-center development; also reports U.S. capacity under construction rose 48% from December 2025 to June 2026. https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/ai-data-center-boom-faces-backlash-us-ballot-box-2026-10-29/

[12] Garden, Leah, and Stefan Modrich. “Data Center Backlash Shapes Midterm Ballots, Campaigns across US.” S&P Global Market Intelligence, October 1, 2026. Reports local moratoria and bans, project cancellations amid community opposition, and continued expansion of U.S. data-center capacity. The reported counts reflect the article’s cited tracker and reporting period. https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/articles/2026/10/data-center-backlash-shapes-midterm-ballots-campaigns-across-us-106324121

[13] Congressional Research Service. “Data Centers and the Electricity Grid: Frequently Asked Questions.” Report R49326, September 1, 2026. Describes federal support for data-center development alongside growing local opposition, electricity-grid constraints, and concerns about electricity prices and reliability. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R49326

[14] The Washington Post. “A Nationwide Backlash against Data Centers Erupts at the Polls.” November 4, 2026. Reports that more than 20 local ballot measures restricting or regulating data-center development passed in the November 3 elections. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/11/04/voters-pass-over-20-ballot-measures-ban-or-restrict-data-centers/