(Reuters) -The Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company PJSC (du) on Tuesday announced a 2 billion dirhams ($544.54 million) hyperscale data center deal with Microsoft.
The hyperscale data center, to be built and operated at a cost of around 2 billion dirhams, will have Microsoft as the main tenant and its capacity will be delivered in tranches, du said in a statement.
Hyperscale centers are large facilities that are mainly used to provide data storage and cloud computing services to businesses at scale.
The deal, made during Dubai AI Week, "represents a pivotal leap in our strategic goal to revolutionise the digital ecosystem of the UAE", Fahad Al Hassawi, CEO of du, said.
Currently, du operates five data centers across the United Arab Emirates, which has been heavily investing to become a global hub for AI outside of the US.
($1 = 3.6728 UAE dirham)
(Reporting by Elwely Elwelly, Writing by Menna Alaa El-Din; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Shailesh Kuber)
