A United Arab Emirates investment firm has pledged $20 billion to build new data centers targeting AI across a number of locations across the United States.
Billionaire Hussain Sajwani, CEO and founder of the property development company DAMAC Properties in Dubai, made the announcement at president-elect Donald Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. Sajwani is a close friend of Trump, according to news reports.
Trump said the first phase of the planned investment will take place in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. And that’s just for starters. “They may go double, or even somewhat more than double, that amount of money,” Trump said of the deal.
“At the moment, we’re planning $20 billion in data centers catering to the AI and cloud business for the hyperscalers,” said Sajwani.
What’s not clear about this particular announcement is exactly how or when the $20 billion will be invested. Would DAMAC be investing in U.S. data center developers like Equinix and JLL, which are often looking for development funding, or would it be in new data center developments owned and operated by DAMAC? Each has different challenges.
Data center developments are not short timelines and commonly take five years from an idea to fruition of a first building commissioning, notes Alan Howard, senior analyst for data center infrastructure at Omdia.
“Considering the already robust playing field of data center developers here in the U.S. there is already competition for suitable real estate particularly for bigger projects. In most of the popular U.S. markets there is already a power capacity connection queue that could significantly delay new requests. All this suggesting that the headline is impressive, but the reality could be years away,” he said.
This is not Trump’s first high-tech deal since winning the election last November. In December, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son announced plans to invest $100 billion in the U.S. and create 100,000 jobs over a four-year period.
Source:: Network World