Ooredoo leads $800M investment in Southeast Asia AI platform
Qatari telco takes 49% stake in Zankore alongside NVIDIA and Nokia
#Qatar #investment - Qatari telecom investor-operator Ooredoo Group has committed approximately $800 million as lead investor and founding 49 percent shareholder to launch Zankore, an AI neocloud platform targeting 1 gigawatt of capacity. The venture was developed with Indonesian telecommunications operator Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Finnish networking supplier Nokia, and US chipmaker NVIDIA. Zankore aims to build Southeast Asia’s largest AI infrastructure platform, deliver 200 megawatts of AI capacity by H1 2027, and capture growing regional data center demand. The initial $800 million investment is projected to contribute roughly $600 million in cumulative contracted EBITDA to Ooredoo Group over its first five years.
SO WHAT? - This landmark $800 million transaction marks a critical point Ooredoo as it extends its AI infrastructure vision beyond the Middle East and North Africa. The telecom group signed a deal with NVIDIA in 2024 towards the build-out of its AI infrastructure and cloud platforms for MENA. So, the remaining question was how Ooredoo was going to approach AI compute services for its Southeast Asia business. By acquiring a 49 percen stake in Zankore, Ooredoo becomes one of the first-movers in Southeast Asia, where AI-driven data centre demand is projected to grow 3.5x by 2030, but data centre investment has failed to keep pace.
KEY POINTS:
Ooredoo Group is investing approximately $800 million as founding shareholder to secure a 49% stake in the newly launched Zankore.
The initial $800 million outlay is expected to generate roughly $600 million in cumulative contracted EBITDA for Ooredoo Group over its first five years of operation.
The initiative brings together Qatari telecommunications operator Ooredoo Group, Indonesian telecommunications company Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Finnish networking supplier Nokia, and US semiconductor leader NVIDIA.
Zankore is targeting an ultimate deployment of 1 GW of NVIDIA DSX AI Factory capacity, with an initial launch phase scheduled to deliver 200 megawatts (MW) by H1 2027.
The infrastructure will be powered by NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 architectures and incorporate NVIDIA DSX MaxLPS power optimization technology to boost compute output by up to 40% within the same power envelope.
Headquartered initially in Indonesia to serve the domestic market, Zankore plans to scale its full-stack AI neocloud services across the broader Southeast Asian region.
Strategic leadership will be overseen by a Board of Directors including Ooredoo Group CEO Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Indosat CEO Vikram Sinha, and Independent Director Arijit Ranjan Sarker, with Ulf Ewaldsson appointed as Chief Executive Officer.
Financial advisory services were conducted by boutique consultancy FTI Capital Advisors for Ooredoo Group, while multinational investment bank Citi acted as exclusive financial advisor to Indosat.
ZOOM OUT - Ooredoo Group has systematically built out its AI infrastructure capabilities across the Middle East and North Africa. In September 2024, the telecom operator secured a QAR 2 billion ($549 million) 10-year hybrid financing facility—the largest ICT transaction in Qatar’s history—from QNB, Doha Bank, and Masraf Al Rayan. That deal is powering the expansion of 26 regional data centers in partnership with NVIDIA. The NVIDIA agreement enables Ooredoo to deploy thousands of Tensor Core GPUs, establishing a dedicated AI cloud services platform spanning Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Algeria, Tunisia, and the Maldives.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: Ooredoo, Nokia
Read more about Ooredoo:
Ooredoo bets on Microsoft to become an AI-powered telco (Middle East AI News)
Ooredoo-backed Syntys expands Qatar data centre footprint (Middle East AI News)
Ooredoo Kuwait launches first sovereign AI data centre (Middle East AI News)
Ooredoo secures $549M finance for MENA AI infrastructure (Middle East AI News)
Ooredoo to buy thousands of Nvidia GPUs (Middle East AI News)