DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Middle East data center market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 7% through 2024, and Gulf Data Hub (GDH) is set to accelerate this growth with the capacity expansion of its Dubai campus data center from 20 to 50 MW. It is also commencing operations in Abu Dhabi by launching a data center in the capital city with a capacity of 24 MW.
The vision and leadership of the UAE government to position Dubai as a smart city, along with the digitization trends in the Middle East, has helped to spur increasing operational business requirements, encouraging enterprises to migrate from server room operations to managed services, colocation, and hybrid infrastructure services. The current GDH expansion further illustrates the company’s strategic long-term partnership with Etisalat to provide colocation services to private enterprises, government entities, and cloud service providers.
“Dubai has emerged as a regional leader and the unquestionable digital capital of the Middle East, a status endorsed by multiple global reports on smart cities, thanks largely to the vision and leadership of Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum,” said Tarek Al Ashram, UAE national serial entrepreneur and founder of GDH. “At GDH, our efforts are fully in line with the public sector initiative to drive Dubai’s plans and programs in smart transformation. We are committed to bringing forward exclusive and cutting-edge digital data center technology to provide our customers paramount safety and flexibility with enterprise class reliability. The cumulative implementation of cloud computing services is leading to the evolution of retail and wholesale colocation services in the region. The market is witnessing a high uptake of colocation spaces across existing and upcoming data centers. GDH has positioned itself strategically to emphasize the importance of data in improving communication between cities, citizens, automobiles, electronics, and devices with the overall smart city infrastructure.”
As part of the capacity expansion to meet the need for extended data requirements, GDH has moved to add data center certification awards from Uptime Institute. GDH has been awarded the Tier III Gold Operational Sustainability award for the FZCO data center in Dubai, phases 1 and 2. GDH is currently working toward completion of a Tier Certification of Design Documents, Tier Certification of Constructed Facility and a Tier Certification of Operational Sustainability for its Abu Dhabi facility toward the beginning of 2021.
“We are pleased to work with Gulf Data Hub and their efforts in expanded operations to support an exciting time with Dubai’s smart city initiatives,” said Mustapha Louni, managing director, Middle East and Africa, Uptime Institute. “GDH is taking all the steps necessary to continue to take a leadership role in the data center and colocation market, and we are happy to award them with the Tier III Gold Operational Sustainability award and look forward to a continued relationship into the future.”
