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The
agreement marks Nvidia's first large-scale launch in a region to
which Washington has curbed the export of sophisticated U.S.
chips to stop Chinese firms from using Middle Eastern countries
as a back door to access the newest AI technology.
It will make Ooredoo the first company in the region able to
give clients of its data centers in Qatar, Algeria, Tunisia,
Oman, Kuwait and the Maldives direct access to Nvidia's AI and
graphics processing technology, Ooredoo said in a statement.
Providing the technology will allow Ooredoo to better help its
customers deploy generative AI applications, Nvidia's senior
vice president of telecom Ronnie Vasishta said.
"Our b2b clients, thanks to this agreement, will have access to
services that probably their competitors (won't) for another 18
to 24 months," Ooredoo's CEO Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo told Reuters
in an interview.
The companies did not disclose the value of the deal, which was
signed on the sidelines of the TM Forum in Copenhagen on June
19.
Ooredoo also would not disclose exactly what type of Nvidia
technology it will be installing in its data centers, saying
that it depends on availability and customer demand.
Washington allows the export of some Nvidia technology to the
Middle East, but curbs exports of the company's most
sophisticated chips.
Ooredoo is investing $1 billion to boost its regional data
centre capacity by 20-25 additional megawatts on top of the 40
megawatts it currently has, and plans to almost triple that by
the end of the decade, Fakhroo said.
The company has carved out its data centers into a separate
company following a similar move last year to create the Middle
East's largest tower company in a deal with Kuwait's Zain and
Dubai's TASC Towers Holding.
Ooredoo also has plans to carve out its undersea cables and
fiber network into a separate entity, Fakhroo said.
(Reporting by Andrew Mills; Editing by Jan Harvey)
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