Indian tech billionaire to build two data centres in UAE

Indian software company Zoho Corporation, owned by tech billionaire Sridhar Vembu, plans to build two data centres in Abu Dhabi and Dubai this year.

The company will spend AED100 million ($27 million), on the back of AED80 million invested in building partnerships across the Emirates to support digital transformation by collaborating with government entities, a statement said.

In 2025, Zoho recorded a 32 percent increase in customers and a 20 percent rise in revenue. 

The Middle East and North Africa have emerged as the company’s second-fastest-expanding market globally, with a 41 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the past five years. 

The UAE is among its top markets, with customer and revenue CAGR of 77 percent and 45 percent respectively since 2021, the statement said.

Since opening its Dubai office, Zoho has enabled over 10,000 businesses across the Mena region to adopt cloud technology.

Hyther Nizam, head of the Middle East and Africa at Zoho, said in an interview with Bloomberg that the company plans to build its own data centres in Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Zoho has appointed Equinix to set up facilities in the UAE and begun discussions with Saudi Arabia and South Africa, he said.

The company offers open-source, cloud-based software for about half the cost of equivalent Google and Microsoft services, he said.  

It generates about $1.5 billion in revenue from the US and India, serves more than 1 million paying customers and operates 20 data centres worldwide.

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The UAE has the highest number of data centres in the Gulf at 57. Of those, 33 are in Abu Dhabi, 22 in Dubai and one each in Sharjah and Al Ain, based on estimates by Data Center Map, a database widely used in the industry.

Saudi Arabia has 51 data centres. Oman has 15, Qatar 11, Bahrain eight and Kuwait five. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Turkey has 81 data centres, Israel has 61 and Iran has 20.

A consortium that includes UAE technology investor MGX agreed in October to acquire US-based Aligned Data Centers from private infrastructure funds managed by Macquarie for $40 billion.

In September 2024 MGX joined the $30 billion Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership, which will build data centres and energy infrastructure.