Milan Radia, CEO of Connected Compute and partner at Taranis Capital, recently discussed with Mark Walker the significant transformation of digital infrastructure driven by AI workloads and their impact on data centre needs. The Middle East has positioned itself as a leading location for high-density data centre projects, bolstered by key factors such as strategic connectivity and dependable power supply.
Radia highlighted the industry’s shift from a traditional “powered shell” real estate model to more intricate environments designed to accommodate exceptionally high power densities. The introduction of Nvidia GB300 chips is pushing the power requirements for racks to 150kW, a significant increase from previous standards.
“Liquid is a much better conductor of heat,” Radia remarked, stressing that the industry’s move from air-cooling to direct-to-chip liquid cooling has become essential for modern AI facilities. This shift creates a notable risk of obsolescence for older infrastructure that cannot be easily upgraded to meet the current demands.
The urgency for “on-soil” data centres is also accelerating, driven by government initiatives in the UAE and Saudi Arabia that emphasize data sovereignty. Radia noted that proprietary AI models are now critical for sensitive government and corporate data, underscoring the need for domestic capacity. The focus is increasingly shifting toward “inferencing,” which requires low latency for applications such as Gemini, delivering real-time responses.
Investment in regional infrastructure is further bolstered by bilateral agreements and the availability of advanced GPUs, facilitating large-scale projects backed by organizations like IHC. Radia concluded that while the demand for infrastructure capacity is immense, the most successful entities will be those developing distributed, high-density hubs capable of meeting the unique latency requirements of the next-generation software.