(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

Construction of the multi-billion-dirham Stargate UAE project is well underway at an exponential pace, with the first phase set to be completed within two years and the entire 5-gigawatt project within the next few years.

Officials said on Thursday that around 3,500 people are currently working on the project, reflecting the massive size and speed of the project, which was announced earlier this year.

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The UAE and global tech giants, including G42, OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia, SoftBank Group, and Cisco, announced an agreement to build Stargate UAE - a next-generation AI infrastructure cluster that will run in the newly established 5-gigawatt UAE–US AI Campus in Abu Dhabi.

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Stargate UAE is a 1-gigawatt compute cluster, which is being developed by Khazna Data Centers - G42 company - and will be operated by OpenAI and Oracle.

The agreement for the mega project was signed during the visit of US President Donald Trump to the UAE and other Gulf countries.

“Just to give you a sense of the size of this project, this is about 10 square miles, not only to build the data center, but the entire ecosystem around it, whether it's semiconductor business and R&D. This ecosystem here will not only serve the UAE, but countries beyond the UAE. We have more than 3 billion (people) within a 3,000 kilometre-radius that we would like to export this intelligence grid to," said Hassan Alnaqbi, CEO of Khazna Data Centre, a G42 company.

While giving a media briefing at the Gitex Global exhibition at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Thursday, Alnaqbi also showcased the construction work of the first phase, which is progressing at a very fast pace.

“This programme has been accelerated within 12 months. And I don't think anywhere in the world you can do that in 12 months. We're looking at building the entire five gigawatt within the next few years. This is a challenge by itself. And I think if it can happen, it can happen only in the UAE,” Alnaqbi said.

On Thursday, G42 confirmed that 200MW of the 1GW project is scheduled to be delivered in 2026.

3,500 working on the projects

Highlighting the pace of construction work, Gareth Dennison, vice president for special projects at Khazna Data Centres, said three months ago, the whole construction site was covered in a 40-foot-high sand dune.

“We probably moved 1.2 million cubic feet of sand dune from the site. This is 1.3-million-man hours of work to get to this point on-site right now. There's about 3,500 workforce on site already, and that's what we've managed to mobilize so quickly. So, a lot of work and effort to get to this point in time. It's a huge achievement. If it could happen, it could only happen in the UAE,” Dennison said while sharing the details of the project during a panel discussion at the G42 stand at Gitex Global 2025.

“The UAE has an amazing proposition. Once a decision is made, all stakeholders work together to achieve that same goal. I don't think any other country in the world can duplicate that singular vision to kind of deliver a successful project. I honestly see this very much as a UAE ambition project which will completely change the perception of Abu Dhabi as a leader in AI and advanced technology, not just for the region, but globally,” he said.

Bjorn Viedge, general manager of Alec Data Centers, and Nicholas Breham, executive vice-president for asset management at Taqat Transmission, also attended the panel discussioin.

Viedge said one of the key challenges of the Stargate UAE project are its scale, complexity, and speed of this build.

”It's something that's truly remarkable. We were very fortunate to get very early engagement into the project. One of the key things that we have to really focus on is ensuring that there's super collaboration between the teams and managing the supply chain and logistics. There's an enormous number of stakeholders involved in the project and making sure that you all collaborate on it. This is super important,” he said.

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