The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) at a breakneck pace. Countries like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have launched ambitious national strategies aimed at establishing themselves as global AI hubs. From smart cities and predictive healthcare to autonomous transport and advanced financial systems, AI promises to unlock unprecedented economic potential across the region.
But behind the scenes of this digital renaissance lies an inconvenient truth: AI’s infrastructure—particularly data centers—is a voracious consumer of energy and water. As governments and businesses in the region race to harness the power of AI, they must also reckon with its environmental cost. The challenge is clear: how can the MENA region pursue technological and economic growth without undermining its fragile ecological systems?
The Energy Hunger of AI
Training modern AI models is a highly energy-intensive process. Large language models, for example, require tens of thousands of GPU hours and consume as much energy as dozens of homes might use in a year. Every chatbot interaction, image generation, or voice command relies on extensive back-end computing power, usually processed in massive data centers.
These data centers—often referred to as the digital backbone of AI—require not only high-capacity servers but also sophisticated cooling systems to prevent overheating. The result is an enormous and growing demand for electricity, much of which is still derived from fossil fuels in the MENA region. While solar energy initiatives are on the rise, the scale of data center expansion could place additional strain on national grids and hinder regional climate goals.
A Carbon Dilemma
Many countries in the Gulf are still heavily reliant on fossil fuels like natural gas and oil for electricity generation. While this has allowed for rapid energy availability, it also risks deepening the region’s carbon footprint just as the world is trying to decarbonize.
As data center operations expand to support AI and other digital services, the emissions from increased power usage could counteract sustainability efforts. The irony is that AI is often championed as a driver of environmental solutions—through smart energy grids, precision agriculture, and climate modeling—yet its very infrastructure may exacerbate the problems it seeks to solve.
Without deliberate policy interventions and technological innovation, the MENA region risks walking a path where economic gains from AI come at the cost of environmental degradation. This tradeoff is neither sustainable nor in alignment with the region’s long-term visions for green growth.
Water Scarcity and Cooling Concerns
Beyond energy, cooling is one of the most pressing environmental challenges for data centers in the Middle East. Traditional data center cooling systems rely on large volumes of water for evaporation-based methods. But in a region already grappling with chronic water scarcity, this is not a viable long-term strategy.
Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are some of the most water-stressed in the world, with limited freshwater resources and growing demand from urbanization and agriculture. Using potable water to cool servers is environmentally and ethically questionable.
In response, innovators are exploring alternative solutions, such as seawater-based cooling systems and air-based cooling mechanisms that require less or no water. Microsoft, for example, has piloted underwater data centers in cooler oceanic environments, which may offer a glimpse into future adaptations. Still, such systems remain costly and logistically complex.
The need for scalable, region-specific cooling innovations is urgent. Without them, the environmental costs of AI adoption could undermine public support and investor confidence in the region’s digital transformation.
Green Ambitions: Policy and Industry Responses
Encouragingly, several MENA governments and tech companies are actively pursuing greener alternatives. Saudi Arabia’s NEOM project, for instance, promises a fully renewable-powered smart city with integrated data infrastructure. Similarly, the UAE has set targets to generate 50% of its energy from clean sources by 2050, and new data center projects in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are increasingly incorporating solar power and energy-efficient designs.
Data center operators are also exploring advanced liquid cooling technologies, AI-optimized energy management systems, and water recycling for non-potable use. These efforts are crucial but need to be scaled up across the region to match the rapid growth in AI and data demand.
International collaborations will be key. Partnerships between local governments, global cloud providers, and environmental think tanks can accelerate the development and implementation of sustainable data practices. Regulatory frameworks must also evolve to enforce minimum energy and water efficiency standards for new data center projects.
AI as Part of the Solution
Ironically, the same technology causing environmental strain can also help mitigate it. AI can optimize energy consumption and thermal management in real time, reducing unnecessary power usage and identifying inefficiencies in cooling systems. Google’s DeepMind, for example, has used AI to reduce the energy needed to cool its data centers by 40%.
MENA-based data centers could benefit from adopting similar intelligent management systems, especially in climates where every watt and every liter of water counts. Integrating AI into the operation of AI infrastructure is both pragmatic and symbolic: it demonstrates that sustainability is not at odds with innovation, but a necessary partner to it.
Security: The Overlooked Dimension
While environmental sustainability is front of mind, the growth of AI and data centers in the Middle East also raises urgent questions around cybersecurity. As data centers handle increasingly sensitive government, financial, and personal information, the risk of cyberattacks grows. For a region that is rapidly digitizing, ensuring the security of data infrastructure is as critical as making it green.
Energy-efficient design cannot come at the expense of resilient security architecture. AI models and digital platforms will only be as trustworthy as the systems that store and protect their underlying data.
Toward a Balanced Digital Future
The rise of AI in the MENA region is a story of ambition, innovation, and transformation. But it must also be a story of balance. Economic development should not come at the cost of environmental health. As the region positions itself as a leader in AI, it has the opportunity—and the responsibility—to lead in sustainable digital infrastructure as well.
This is not just a technological or environmental issue; it is a generational one. The decisions made today about how to power, cool, and secure our digital systems will shape the region’s future resilience in the face of climate change and resource scarcity.
By aligning innovation with sustainability, the Middle East can prove that AI and ecological stewardship are not mutually exclusive, but rather, mutually reinforcing pillars of a thriving, future-ready economy.
By Dr. John Mullins, Associate Professor of Management Practice in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, London Business School