SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Innovation City and Siada have launched a sovereign AI data centre in Ras Al Khaimah, which they describe as the first facility of its kind in the Middle East.

Operating inside Innovation City’s free zone, the site gives businesses access to Nvidia B200 graphics processing units, which are in short supply globally. Companies based in the zone can use the computing infrastructure by the hour, reserve capacity for longer periods, or run managed on-site environments.

The launch reflects growing Gulf demand for local processing and storage of sensitive data as regulators place greater emphasis on cross-border data transfers. All processing at the facility takes place within the UAE, with data remaining under UAE jurisdiction.

The offering is aimed at founders and companies in sectors where data residency matters, including financial technology, digital health and government-related work. Gaming and AI-focused start-ups are also expected to use the service.

Local processing

The centre was developed through a partnership between Innovation City, a technology-focused free zone in Ras Al Khaimah, and Siada, part of IOPn. The model combines access to advanced chips with infrastructure designed to keep workloads within a single national jurisdiction.

Demand for such arrangements has grown as businesses face tighter compliance requirements and closer scrutiny of where data is processed. In the Gulf, that trend has increased interest in domestic computing infrastructure that can support AI development without relying on overseas cloud regions.

Nvidia’s B200 chips have become a key selling point for data centre operators and cloud providers because of their role in training and running AI models. Innovation City and Siada said they had secured and activated the hardware at a time when many buyers face long waits for new supply.

The project also adds to competition among Gulf jurisdictions seeking to attract technology businesses. Free zones across the UAE have long used ownership rules, tax structures and regulatory frameworks to attract foreign firms, and access to AI computing is becoming part of that proposition.

Innovation City is positioning the facility as a differentiator in that market. Rather than offering only licensing and office set-up services, it is seeking to add core computing infrastructure to its free zone model.

Paul Dawalibi, Chief Executive Officer of Innovation City, said the move addressed practical constraints facing AI businesses. “This partnership with Siada proves what makes Innovation City different,” he said. “We are not another free zone chasing the AI wave. We are leading it by deeply understanding the exact pain points of technology and AI companies – and solving them head-on with sovereign compute infrastructure that no one else delivers at this scale. If you are an AI company serious about building the future, this is the only ecosystem engineered to help you succeed at speed.”

Regional contest

The launch comes as Middle Eastern governments and business hubs invest heavily in AI-related infrastructure, from data centres to semiconductor partnerships and cloud services. Access to chips, electricity, land and regulatory backing has become central to that competition, particularly as demand for model training and inference grows.

For customers, a central question is whether local hosting can meet both performance needs and legal requirements. By emphasising sovereign control over data and computing resources, the operators are targeting clients that want to avoid the legal and operational complications of sending workloads abroad.

Mojtaba Asadian, Chief Executive Officer of IOPn, framed the project around control over data and infrastructure. “Sovereignty isn’t just about where data sits – it’s about who gets to decide,” he said. “IOPn was built from the ground up so that people, businesses, and governments retain genuine agency over their own data, identity, and intelligence – the right to choose their infrastructure, not have it chosen for them. Building Siada is not just a regional milestone. It is a blueprint for how sovereign AI should be built everywhere – infrastructure that hands control back to the people and institutions it serves, in step with the UAE’s vision for the future of data safeguarding.”

Ras Al Khaimah has been working to broaden its appeal to international investors beyond its traditional industrial and tourism base. Officials have promoted the emirate’s business environment, foreign ownership rules and broader diversification strategy as part of that effort.

The new data centre gives the emirate a tangible role in the region’s race to host AI infrastructure, with a facility that is already live rather than planned. Businesses in Innovation City can now run AI workloads on Nvidia B200 hardware while keeping every computation on UAE soil.