Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has approved the second phase of its massive Warsan green data centre, significantly expanding the emirate's capacity to support AI workloads, cloud computing, and digital government services — all powered entirely by renewable solar energy from the Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park. The facility, covering 66,000 square meters with over 100 MW of total capacity, positions Dubai as the Middle East's premier destination for sustainable high-performance computing at a time when global demand for AI infrastructure is growing exponentially.
The approval of Phase 2 by HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA, underscores the authority's strategy to build world-class digital infrastructure that meets international sustainability standards while addressing the emirate's rapidly growing compute requirements.
Warsan Green Data Centre — DEWA Official Specifications
66,000 sqm total area, 100+ MW total capacity, 100% solar powered via Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park — Phase 1 operational by H2 2026
Why Dubai Needs a Green Data Centre Now
The global data centre market is experiencing unprecedented demand, driven primarily by the explosion of artificial intelligence workloads. Training a single large language model can require thousands of GPUs running continuously for months, consuming megawatts of electricity. As Dubai accelerates its AI adoption — from government services and smart city operations to financial services and healthcare — the demand for local, high-performance computing infrastructure has outpaced existing capacity.
Dubai's current data centre ecosystem includes facilities operated by international providers such as Equinix, Khazna, and Gulf Data Hub. However, the Warsan facility is significant because it is the first government-backed, solar-powered data centre specifically designed to serve both public sector AI workloads and private cloud service providers. DEWA's ownership ensures alignment with national priorities, while the solar-powered operation eliminates the carbon footprint concern that plagues data centres globally.
Phase 1: Operational by Late 2026
Phase 1 of the Warsan data centre is on track to come online in the second half of 2026. This initial phase will deliver a significant portion of the total 100+ MW capacity, providing immediate relief for government agencies running AI applications, smart city platforms, and digital services that currently rely on a combination of local and international cloud infrastructure.
The facility is designed to meet Tier III+ reliability standards, ensuring 99.982% uptime — critical for government services that operate 24/7 and AI workloads that cannot tolerate interruption during training or inference operations.
Phase 2: Approved and Expanding
The newly approved Phase 2 ensures continuous expansion of the facility to meet growing demand. As more government entities and private enterprises migrate workloads to the Warsan centre, additional capacity will be brought online in modular increments. This phased approach allows DEWA to match investment with actual demand, avoiding the overcapacity that has affected data centre markets in other regions.
Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park Integration
The facility draws 100% of its power from the world's largest single-site solar park, which has a planned capacity of 5,000 MW by 2030. This ensures zero carbon emissions from power generation
Advanced Cooling Systems
Purpose-built cooling infrastructure using free-air cooling during winter months and high-efficiency chillers during summer, minimizing the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratio in Dubai's desert climate
Government-Grade Security
Multi-layered physical and digital security meeting UAE government data sovereignty requirements, including on-premise encryption and isolated network zones for sensitive workloads
High-Speed Connectivity
Direct fiber connections to UAE-IX internet exchange, submarine cable landing stations, and DEWA's own fiber network spanning the emirate, ensuring low-latency connectivity to global cloud networks
The Solar Advantage: Why Dubai's Approach Is Different
Data centres are notorious energy consumers. Globally, they account for approximately 1-2% of total electricity consumption, a figure projected to reach 3-4% by 2030 as AI workloads proliferate. Most data centres worldwide rely on grid electricity generated primarily from fossil fuels, creating a significant carbon footprint that undermines corporate sustainability commitments.
Dubai's approach with the Warsan facility is fundamentally different. By powering the entire facility from the Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park — already the world's largest single-site solar installation with over 2,000 MW of current capacity and 5,000 MW planned by 2030 — DEWA eliminates the carbon emissions associated with power generation entirely. This gives enterprises running workloads in Warsan a genuine claim to carbon-neutral computing, a competitive advantage as ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) requirements become mandatory for international businesses.
"DEWA is committed to providing world-class digital infrastructure that supports Dubai's vision to become a global leader in artificial intelligence while maintaining the highest sustainability standards. The Warsan green data centre represents the convergence of these two priorities."
— HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA
DEWA's Broader Digital Infrastructure Strategy
The Warsan data centre is part of DEWA's broader digital transformation strategy, which has made it one of the most technologically advanced utility companies in the world. DEWA has deployed AI across its operations — from predictive maintenance on power grids to demand forecasting and customer service automation. The authority operates its own fiber optic network spanning the emirate, supports smart grid technology with over 2 million smart meters, and has been recognized with numerous international awards for innovation and sustainability.
DEWA Digital Infrastructure Portfolio
- Warsan Green Data Centre: 66,000 sqm, 100+ MW, 100% solar-powered facility for AI and cloud workloads
- Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park: World's largest single-site solar park — 5,000 MW planned capacity by 2030
- Smart Grid Network: 2+ million smart meters deployed across the emirate enabling real-time energy management
- DEWA Fiber Network: Emirate-wide fiber optic infrastructure supporting DEWA operations and third-party connectivity
- AI Operations Center: Machine learning-powered grid management, demand prediction, and predictive maintenance
- Green Hydrogen Project: Solar-powered green hydrogen production at the Solar Park for clean energy storage
Dubai's Data Centre Market in Context
The UAE has emerged as the largest data centre market in the Middle East, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi accounting for the majority of regional capacity. Industry estimates project up to $1 billion in additional data centre investments through 2026, driven by hyperscaler expansion, enterprise cloud migration, and AI infrastructure demand.
Major international cloud providers including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle have established or announced regional data centre presence in the UAE. The Warsan facility complements these commercial offerings by providing a government-backed, sovereignty-compliant option that is particularly attractive for public sector workloads, financial services data, and other regulated use cases where data residency requirements apply.
What This Means for Businesses and Developers
Practical Impact for Different Stakeholders
- AI startups: Access to affordable, sustainable compute infrastructure without building their own — critical for training and deploying models locally
- Government entities: Sovereign, secure infrastructure for smart city applications, digital identity systems, and citizen service platforms
- Financial services: Data residency-compliant infrastructure meeting DFSA and CBUAE regulatory requirements
- Healthcare providers: Secure processing environment for patient data, medical imaging AI, and digital health platforms
- International enterprises: A carbon-neutral computing option that satisfies ESG reporting requirements while maintaining regional proximity
- Cloud providers: Wholesale capacity for expanding regional presence with sustainability credentials
The Road Ahead: Powering Dubai's AI Future
The Warsan green data centre is more than a building — it is the physical foundation on which Dubai's AI ambitions will be built. Every AI model trained for government services, every smart city sensor network processing data in real-time, every autonomous vehicle making split-second decisions on Dubai's roads — all require compute infrastructure. The Warsan facility ensures that this infrastructure exists locally, operates sustainably, and scales to match Dubai's growth trajectory.
As the D33 Economic Agenda pushes Dubai toward becoming a global top-three city by 2033, the computing infrastructure to support that ambition must be in place now. DEWA's decision to greenlight Phase 2 of Warsan — before Phase 1 has even gone live — demonstrates confidence in the demand trajectory and a commitment to staying ahead of the curve rather than reacting to capacity constraints after they emerge.
In a world where the race for AI dominance is increasingly a race for compute infrastructure, Dubai's solar-powered, government-backed data centre strategy may prove to be one of its most consequential investments.
