DUBAI: GITEX Global 2024, the world’s largest technology and startup event, hosted the largest data centre gathering in the Middle East on Thursday at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC). The event highlighted the region’s significant strides toward leading the global data centre market, showcasing innovative solutions and discussing the integration of artificial intelligence into data infrastructure.
According to Emirates News Agency, the conference program at GITEX Global emphasized the transformative role of AI in data centers, aligning with the global market’s projected growth to US$256 billion by the end of this year, and anticipated to rise to $775 billion by 2034. The event, titled “Data Centres Universe,” brought together major industry players such as Khazna, Legrand, Vertiv, Alibaba Cloud, AWS, DELL, Google Cloud, IBM, and Lenovo. These leaders engaged in vital discussions on the future of hyperscale, modular, and edge data centres, exploring growth strategies and the essential role of scalable dat
a solutions in supporting AI-driven demand.
Hassan Al Naqbi, CEO of Khazna Data Centres, explained the economic impact of expanding data centre operations. “A lot of people think that data centres are not a job creation machine. However, data centres are vital for economies and have different roles involved. If you look at all the hyperscales, their data centres are having a huge impact on the economy as people can secure jobs which are vital for day-to-day operations,” said Al Naqbi during a panel discussion.
Furthermore, the discussions at GITEX Global also tackled the importance of sustainability in data centre operations. Marc Marazzi, Vice President of Legrand Data Centre Solutions, stressed the need for environmentally responsible practices in the rapidly growing market. “It’s great to see many taking the green initiative very seriously and looking at the way they are building and cooling data centres. Today, they are bigger than ever before and being built faster, but we must not lose sight of the im
portance of how we manufacture, what we are installing and how they are managed,” Marazzi commented.