Egypt plans to create a massive AI data center at a cost of $1 billion

Egypt is planning to build the country’s first large-scale data center dedicated to artificial intelligence, with a target capacity of 200 megawatts, a cost of up to $1 billion, and using technologies from the US company Nvidia. The project, announced by Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Raafat Hendy, comes amid competition between the United States and China, the two leading global powers in AI, to strengthen their presence in the Middle East and Africa.

The project is expected to begin with a 20-megawatt facility costing $200 million, as part of a three-year first phase to be implemented by a partnership between Vodafone Business, ABB, and Cavista Technologies, Nvidia’s key partner in Africa. Nvidia, the world’s most valuable listed company, is the main driver behind the current AI boom. Its graphics processing units (GPUs), installed in specialized data centers being built around the world, are used to train AI models.

Cavista Technologies stated that the Egyptian center will use Nvidia’s accelerated computing technologies.

Prior to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first visit to Egypt in a decade last week, Bloomberg reported that Chinese firm Huawei had submitted a bid to build a data center in Egypt, prompting Washington to put forward a competing offer involving US companies Nvidia, AMD, and Microsoft. Xi and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, agreed to “expand cooperation” in the fields of AI and technology, without signing concrete agreements.

The day after Xi left Cairo, Communications Minister Raafat Hendy met with an unnamed “US data center developers consortium,” according to official media, which confirmed that Egypt is seeking international partnerships to transform the country into a “regional hub for data centers.”