Saudi Arabia
Tawal in talks to acquire more than 10,000 Mobily tower sites
Saudi telecom infrastructure company Tawal is reportedly in discussions to acquire more than 10,000 tower sites from Mobily, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest mobile operator, in a transaction that could be announced later in 2026. The proposed acquisition would further consolidate Tawal’s position as a major regional tower operator and expand its existing portfolio of more than 30,000 sites across Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Southeast Europe. Established by stc Group in 2018, Tawal has pursued an increasingly international growth strategy, including its $1.34Bn acquisition of United Group’s tower assets in Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia in 2023. The potential Mobily transaction also follows the Public Investment Fund’s acquisition of a 51% stake in Tawal in 2024 and comes as the company reportedly prepares for a potential initial public offering in 2027 or 2028…Read more
PIF and I Squared target US$2Bn of Saudi infrastructure investment
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and I Squared Capital have signed a memorandum of understanding to assess investments of up to US$2Bn across infrastructure and real estate assets owned by PIF and its portfolio companies. The agreement initially targets up to US$1Bn each for digital infrastructure and district cooling, with scope to expand into related sectors. The partnership is intended to attract additional third-party capital into PIF-backed developments by combining the fund’s extensive project pipeline with I Squared’s investment and operational expertise. The digital infrastructure focus is particularly significant given PIF’s ownership of HUMAIN, which is developing data centres, cloud platforms and AI services in support of Saudi Arabia’s wider economic diversification and AI ambitions. HUMAIN is also reportedly seeking a financing package of at least SAR20Bn, approximately US$5.4Bn, for new Saudi data centre projects. For I Squared, the agreement builds on its growing global data centre portfolio, including recent investments in the US and Brazil, and signals continued institutional appetite for Saudi Arabia’s expanding digital infrastructure market…Read more
UAE
e& UAE and Core42 launch Sovereign AI Compute platform
e& UAE and Core42 have launched a Sovereign AI Compute platform designed to give UAE government entities and enterprises immediate access to locally hosted GPU infrastructure for training, fine-tuning, inference and production deployment. The managed service combines Core42’s Sovereign AI Cloud and heterogeneous GPU capacity with e& UAE’s national connectivity, digital infrastructure and implementation support, allowing organisations to deploy AI workloads while maintaining in-country data residency. Targeted at sectors including government, healthcare, financial services, energy and manufacturing, the platform is intended to reduce reliance on overseas cloud capacity and remove the cost and deployment delays associated with building dedicated on-premises GPU clusters. Its commercial model includes zero egress fees, while the accompanying GPU Connect service bundles compute and high-bandwidth connectivity into a single offering. The partnership reflects the UAE’s broader shift from AI strategy towards operational sovereign infrastructure, with secure compute, connectivity, implementation and resilience increasingly being delivered as an integrated national capability…Read more
Global
US data centre power demand forecast surges to 194GW by 2035
US data centre power requirements could reach 194GW by 2035, according to BloombergNEF, representing an 83% increase from its previous forecast and potentially raising the sector’s share of national electricity consumption from 5.9% today to around 20%. The sharp revision reflects the accelerating pipeline of multi-gigawatt AI campuses, but significant questions remain over whether generation and transmission infrastructure can be delivered quickly enough to support this growth. Bank of America estimates that the US may require more than 230GW of new generating capacity over the next five years, while regulated utilities are currently expected to add only around 93GW of accredited supply. This imbalance is driving greater interest in behind-the-meter generation, with more than 7.5GW of data centre projects incorporating on-site power already under construction and over 60GW at the pre-construction stage, typically alongside – rather than instead of – a grid connection. The implications are also relevant to the GCC, where rapid AI infrastructure expansion will add to electricity systems already managing strong demand growth from cooling, desalination, urbanisation and industrial development. The US experience reinforces the importance of aligning new data centre campuses with generation, transmission, storage and water planning from the outset, rather than treating power availability as a later-stage site consideration…Read more