OpenAI’s next major infrastructure move may be far larger than anything it or its competitors have announced so far. A reported 5-gigawatt data center campus in Abu Dhabi would put the company at the center of one of the world’s largest AI infrastructure projects.
The proposed facility would cover 10 square miles and draw power equivalent to five nuclear reactors. TechCrunch noted that this footprint would be bigger than Monaco, underscoring how sharply AI infrastructure demands are expanding.
A new scale for AI infrastructure
According to a new Bloomberg report cited by TechCrunch, OpenAI is poised to help develop the Abu Dhabi campus and would serve as a primary anchor tenant. The project is being developed with G42, an Abu Dhabi-based tech conglomerate.
The numbers matter because they show how far AI development has moved beyond conventional data center planning. A 5-gigawatt campus is not just another server farm. It signals a model in which AI companies, cloud partners, governments, and chip supply chains are pulled into very large, long-term infrastructure bets.
The planned site would reportedly dwarf any existing AI infrastructure announced by OpenAI or its competitors. OpenAI had not returned TechCrunch’s request for comment at the time of the source article.
How Abu Dhabi fits into Stargate
The UAE project is part of OpenAI’s Stargate project, a joint venture announced in January. Stargate could see OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle build massive data centers around the world filled with powerful computer chips to support AI development.
The first Stargate campus in the U.S. is already under development in Abilene, Texas. That campus is expected to reach 1.2 gigawatts. By comparison, the Abu Dhabi counterpart would more than quadruple that capacity.
That difference helps explain why the reported Middle Eastern campus is drawing attention. The Abilene project is already large, yet the Abu Dhabi plan would push the same infrastructure strategy into a much bigger power and land footprint.
For OpenAI, the logic is straightforward within the facts reported: more advanced AI development requires access to large-scale computing infrastructure. Stargate is the framework through which OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle aim to build that capacity globally.
The G42 relationship behind the project
OpenAI’s connection to the UAE did not begin with the reported data center campus. The company entered a 2023 partnership with G42 that was aimed at driving AI adoption in the Middle East.
During a talk earlier that same year in Abu Dhabi, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised the UAE, saying it “has been talking about AI since before it was cool.”
G42 was founded in 2018 and is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. He is the UAE’s national security advisor and the younger brother of the country’s ruler.
Those details matter because the Abu Dhabi data center is not only a technology story. It also sits inside a wider set of relationships between major AI companies, regional technology groups, and governments. The source article describes broader AI ties between the U.S. and UAE that have been years in the making.
Why lawmakers have been uneasy
The same relationships have raised concerns among some lawmakers and U.S. officials. In late 2023, officials worried that G42 could enable China’s government to gain access to advanced U.S. technology.
The concerns focused on G42’s “active relationships” with blacklisted entities, including Huawei and Beijing Genomics Institute. The article also notes ties to individuals connected to China’s intelligence efforts.
Following pressure from U.S. lawmakers, G42’s CEO told Bloomberg in early 2024 that the company had changed course. He said: “All of our China investments that were previously made are already divested. Because of that, of course, we have no need anymore for any physical China presence.”
Soon after that, Microsoft announced a $1.5 billion investment in G42. Microsoft is a major shareholder in OpenAI and has its own broader interests in the region. Microsoft president Brad Smith also joined G42’s board of directors.
What the plan says about the future of AI
The reported Abu Dhabi campus shows how AI competition is increasingly tied to physical infrastructure. Models and software remain central, but the ability to secure land, power, chips, and international partnerships is becoming just as important.
It also shows why AI infrastructure projects can quickly become geopolitical projects. A 5-gigawatt data center campus connected to OpenAI, G42, SoftBank, Oracle, and Microsoft is not simply a private technical buildout. It brings together commercial ambition, national security concerns, and regional AI strategy.
The plan is still described as a reported project, and OpenAI had not commented to TechCrunch. But even at the planning stage, the Abu Dhabi data center points to the direction of AI development: larger campuses, deeper partnerships, and more scrutiny over who controls the systems that support advanced AI.