Ooredoo to Deploy Thousands of Nvidia GPUs for AI & Local Cloud in MENA

Qatar-based Ooredoo has announced plans to significantly increase its AI infrastructure by deploying thousands of Nvidia Tensor Core GPUs in its AI data centres across the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. This move is part of its ambition to become a leading digital infrastructure provider in the area.

These GPU resources will be available in two modes: (a) GPU-as-a-Service, where external customers (enterprises, governments, startups) can leverage acceleration for machine learning, generative AI, or high-performance computing without owning the hardware; and (b) on-prem platforms or local cloud deployments where customers host private data or applications close to home for lower latency, data sovereignty or regulatory reasons.

Ooredoo intends to leverage its existing data centre platform, its presence in core telecom, tower infrastructure, and enterprise domain to offer this upgraded AI platform. This infrastructure push is aimed at enhancing operational efficiency as well as enabling new AI-powered services across sectors – e.g. fintech, healthcare, smart city applications.

Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Ooredoo's Group CEO, described the partnership with Nvidia as enabling for an "AI revolution" in the region, allowing local customers to process private datasets, build ML/AI models, and extract insights without dependency on foreign cloud providers. Nvidia's senior vice president in telecom emphasized that combining Ooredoo's telecom strength with Nvidia's compute stack helps regional access to generative AI tools.

The strategic benefits include better latency for AI workloads, stronger data privacy and regulatory compliance, new revenue streams via AI services, and fueling innovation in MENA. As demand for AI grows (from startups to large enterprises), infrastructure investment such as this helps bridge gaps in compute capacity and positions Ooredoo to capture emerging opportunity in digital services.