Tencent Cloud plans to boost Middle East data centre footprint

Details: John Tanner; Category: Data Centres & Networks; 29 January 2026; 7998 views

Tencent Cloud is reportedly planning to expand its data centre footprint in the Middle East in a bid to grow its cloud business outside of China.

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Tencent Cloud CEO Dowson Tong said the company intends to expand the number of availability zones for its cloud services over the next 12 to 18 months.

While Tencent Cloud will also expand its presence in Asia Pacific and Europe, Tong said the company will increase its investment in the Middle East and establish a stronger partnership network. Tong gave no details on timelines or financials, the report said.

Tencent Cloud currently has one availability zone in Saudi Arabia, with customers including international food delivery firm Keeta, as well as several gaming companies.

The region has been a hotbed of data centre-related activity in recent months. Ooreedoo’s data centre spinoff Syntys – which currently operates 26 active data centres in Qatar, Tunisia, Kuwait, Oman and Iraq – recently acquired two new data centres from hyperscale data centre operator Q Data QFZ in Qatar.

Batelco by Beyon announced earlier this month this it has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Bahrain-based Qareeb Data Centers to launch what they claim will be Bahrain’s first edge data centre.

Last month, Saudi Arabian telco stc group formed a a strategic joint venture partnership with Humain, a Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF)-owned AI company, to build AI data centres in the country. Last week, Humain and Saudi Arabia’s National Infrastructure Fund announced a strategic financing framework agreement of up to US$1.2 billion to support the expansion of AI and digital infrastructure projects in the country.

At the GITEX Global 2025 event in Dubai last year, UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla Bin Touq said AI must become a core pillar of government spending, on par with defence and cybersecurity, for nations to truly embrace the digital age.

At the same event, UAE-based telco du launched an AI Park in Dubai that will be deployed in phases over a period of five years, and will feature several liquid-cooled hyperscale data centres that will eventually deliver up to 1GW of capacity to support AI-level workloads.

According to analyst firm Kearney, the Middle East’s data centre market is experiencing a significant boom, thanks in part to various regional governmental initiatives like KSA Vision 2030, UAE Vision 2031, New Kuwait 2035, and Digital Oman 2030. Kearney expects the number of data centres in the region to double between 2025 and 2030.