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Oracle deploys the Middle East’s first AI supercluster to power sovereign AI in Abu Dhabi

Oracle expands its Abu Dhabi cloud region with the Middle East’s first NVIDIA Blackwell–powered AI supercluster, accelerating sovereign AI and supporting the UAE’s ambition to build the world’s first fully AI-native government

Andrea Benito
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Published: 25 Nov 2025 12:00

Oracle has expanded its Abu Dhabi cloud region with the Middle East’s first Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Supercluster powered by Nvidia Blackwell GPUs in a move designed to accelerate sovereign AI across the UAE and support Abu Dhabi’s ambition to become the world’s first fully AI-native government by 2027.

The deployment marks one of the region’s most significant investments in high-performance AI compute. It enables governments and regulated industries to run training, inference and R&D workloads in-region while maintaining strict data residency and sovereignty controls.

Oracle launched the Oracle Cloud Abu Dhabi Region in 2019, followed by a second UAE region in Dubai shortly after, becoming the first global hyperscaler to operate two cloud regions in the country. This new expansion builds on Oracle’s multi-year momentum in the Middle East, where it has been steadily growing its sovereign, government-grade cloud footprint to support healthcare, financial services and aviation.

“This deployment marks a decisive moment for Abu Dhabi and the entire Middle East region. By bringing the region’s first OCI Supercluster to Abu Dhabi, we are giving governments and enterprises across the Middle East direct access to some of the world’s most advanced AI compute capabilities, right here in-region,” said Nick Redshaw, senior vice-president of cloud infrastructure for the Middle East and Africa at Oracle.

“This partnership delivers unprecedented compute and performance at scale, supporting Abu Dhabi’s vision of an AI-native government by 2027. By integrating Nvidia accelerated computing with OCI’s secure, distributed cloud, we are ensuring nations have the specialised AI Factory required to innovate locally while maintaining data control,” added Marc Domenech, senior regional director of enterprise Meta at Nvidia.

Strengthening the UAE’s digital government ambitions

The UAE has been one of the most aggressive adopters of AI-driven government services. Abu Dhabi’s vision for a fully AI-native government echoes other digital initiatives, including paperless services, predictive citizen engagement, cross-agency data exchange, and secure and automated public sector operations.

At the Dubai Airshow and Gitex Global this year, UAE officials reiterated that sovereign AI and high-performance computing will be critical to the future of aviation safety systems, air mobility optimisation, energy modelling and national-scale digital identity.

The company now operates cloud regions in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Jeddah and plans to expand in Riyadh, along with planned sovereign cloud zones designed specifically for government and defence workloads. With active and upcoming regions across more than 200 global locations, Oracle claims to be a hyperscaler that offers full-stack cloud services consistently across public, private and edge environments.

The compute scale provided by the new supercluster opens the door for Middle Eastern governments and enterprises to build large-scale foundation models, sector-specific AI assistants and high-intensity scientific workloads, all without data leaving the UAE. As regional demand for AI sovereignty grows, Oracle’s early investment in Middle Eastern cloud infrastructure positions Abu Dhabi as a central hub for AI innovation and digital government transformation.

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