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Abu Dhabi's 5GW UAE-US AI Campus stays on track despite regional conflict
Khazna executive says advance procurement and equipment already moved to the site helped construction continue, while its existing UAE data centres remained operational
- PUBLISHED: Thu 13 Aug 2026, 1:05 PM
[Editor's Note: For the latest updates on how US-Iran hostilities have escalated since a 14-point deal was signed on June 17, follow the Khaleej Times live blog.]
Work on Abu Dhabi's planned 5GW UAE-US AI Campus continued through the recent regional conflict without delivery delays, with equipment already procured and moved to site before disruption hit, according to Khazna Data Centers Chief Commercial Officer Greg Jasmin.
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The massive project is being built as the UAE moves to sharply expand the physical infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence. An initial 200MW of capacity has been targeted for delivery in 2026, while the wider campus is planned to reach 5GW.
For Jasmin, what happened during the conflict was an early test of whether construction at that scale could continue when the region itself was under pressure.
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“We did not have any hiccups in the delivery of our site,” Jasmin said.
Hundreds of pieces of equipment had already been placed in weatherproof storage on site, ready to be moved into the buildings as construction progressed, he said.
“Because of the foresight and the commitments that were made, equipment was bought and delivered to site,” he told Khaleej Times.
Teams still had to determine how work could continue safely during the period, but construction moved ahead. Jasmin said Khazna remained on track to hand over capacity to end-user customers this year.
The pace had already been unusual before the conflict. Jasmin said that within about 12 months of the project’s announcement, two 100MW data-centre buildings had been enclosed, equipment had been placed on their roofs and installation was under way inside.
“I’ve been in the data centre industry now for just about 30 years, I’ve never seen a project at that scale. And I’ve never seen a project move that fast in terms of delivery.”
Customers asked: Are you still building?
The conflict added another test: confidence.
Jasmin said Khazna stayed in close contact with existing customers and companies considering capacity in the UAE as questions grew over whether major infrastructure projects would remain on schedule.
“Everybody was concerned,” he said. “But at the same time, everybody wanted to understand, are we still committed to building?”
“The answer was absolutely yes.”
The concern was not theoretical. During the regional conflict, Amazon Web Services said two of its facilities in the UAE were directly struck during drone attacks, causing structural damage and disrupting power delivery.
Khazna’s existing facilities, Jasmin said, continued operating.
“Every single one of our data centres remained up and operational without any glitch during the recent period,” he said.
That experience supports what Jasmin describes as a wider approach to resilience, one that starts long before an emergency reaches a data-centre site.
“There are certain things that are not under our control,” he said. "Resiliency for us is not just in one aspect. It is resiliency in our design, resiliency in our operations, resiliency in the way we construct, resiliency in the way we go about procuring equipment.”
“If it was just one event or one aspect of our project, we would fail.”
A 5GW campus needs more than data-centre buildings
The scale of the UAE-US AI Campus also means its resilience depends on infrastructure beyond Khazna’s own buildings.
“It’s not just Khazna building a data centre,” Jasmin said. “It’s the power generation, the transmission, the distribution to the site.”
Connectivity linking the campus to users and systems beyond the UAE forms another part of that chain, he added.
Khazna currently has 30 live data centres. Jasmin said around 300MW of capacity is operational in the UAE, with almost another 370MW under construction and commissioning.
“In another 12 to 14 months, almost 700 megawatts of capacity will be live here in the UAE, contracted,” he said.
“And that’s the important part. Not just live. Not just saying we’ve built it, but we’re waiting for them to come. We’ve built it. We’ve leased it.”
The size of individual facilities is also changing. Khazna says most of its future data halls are being designed for capacities of up to 50MW, while individual AI clusters could reach 250MW.
'Our secret sauce'
Operating infrastructure on that scale presents another challenge after construction is complete.
Khazna has moved from a vendor-driven operating model to an in-house organisation through NexOps, which now supports more than 30 data centres.
The team grew from 20 people to more than 230 specialists in under 12 months. Khazna says it has also developed more than 5,000 operational documents to standardise work across its sites, while an AI-powered command and control platform monitors areas including energy, cooling, equipment performance and security.
Jasmin called the team Khazna’s “secret sauce”.
“It’s not for someone else to take responsibility for running and operating our data centres,” he said. “This is run by our team.”
He said the operations team was now studying lessons from the recent conflict as Khazna prepares for facilities substantially larger than those it has traditionally operated.
AI infrastructure, he said, is “totally different in terms of the sizing, in terms of the scale, in terms of the complexities”.
“How do you handle and run a 100-megawatt site?” Jasmin said. “That is very different than running a 20-megawatt or a 30-megawatt site.”
For the 5GW campus now rising in Abu Dhabi, the recent disruption provided an early answer to one of the questions global technology companies will increasingly ask of infrastructure at this scale: whether construction can continue when conditions around it do not.
So far, Jasmin said, Khazna’s measure remains simple.
“Can you deliver?”
Ahmed Waqqas Alawlaqi is the youngest Special Correspondent, reporting from Abu Dhabi on youth, AI and innovation, and human-interest stories. His work brings exclusive perspectives from the Capital, highlighting voices that shape the UAE's future.