Amid US restrictions limiting the export of some advanced AI accelerators to much of the Middle East, Silicon Valley's Nvidia has reached a deal to supply Qatari telecom Ooredoo's data centers with "thousands" of GPUs.
Nvidia is launched in the Middle East, says Ooredoo CEO | Reuters
The AI accelerators in question – which may or may not be export-restricted – will not only be deployed in Ooredoo's data centers. They will be made available to startups in Qatar, Algeria, Tunisia, Oman, Kuwait and the Maldives, the Middle East industry announced in a statement on Sunday.
In an interview, group CEO Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo predicted the deal would give Ooredoo an 18- to 24-month head start on its rivals in the region. However, the agreement, which was signed during TMForum in Copenhagen last week, remains rather vague about what and how many GPUs Ooredoo ultimately intends to deploy.
With Nvidia's current generation H100 and H200s in high demand and next generation Blackwell accelerators not due out until later this year at the earliest, Ooredoo has a couple of options, depending on the timing.
