• The UAE is considering spreading its planned Stargate AI campus across multiple locations following Iranian attacks, Reuters reported
  • G42 said construction was progressing as planned, while the final site arrangement remained under review

The fact

The UAE is considering spreading its planned AI campus across several locations following Iranian attacks, Reuters reported on 11 September. G42 said construction was progressing as planned and that project details remained under review. No final revised masterplan or cost has been announced.

The original Stargate UAE plan, announced in May 2025, called for an Abu Dhabi AI data centre with a target capacity of 1GW and an initial 200MW phase planned for 2026. Cisco said it would provide networking, security and observability technology alongside the other project partners.

The assessment

Spreading the development across several locations could reduce the risk that one local incident affects the whole campus. But separate buildings do not automatically make a customer's application more resilient. The service also needs enough capacity elsewhere, up-to-date copies of its data and a way to move or restart the workload when something fails.

Those arrangements can vary considerably. A second site might run separate workloads, hold spare capacity or keep a live copy of the same service. Each option has different costs and recovery times, so customers would need to know what the project actually offers rather than assume that multiple locations provide automatic backup.

For BTW readers, a revised site plan would change the physical design of Stargate UAE, but the customer impact will depend on how services are built across those sites. Until the new plan and recovery arrangements are published, geographic separation should not be treated as a confirmed continuity guarantee.

What to watch

Watch for a confirmed masterplan showing the number of sites, their locations, capacity and construction sequence. Customer service specifications should also show whether workloads can be replicated between sites, how much spare capacity is available and how recovery will be tested. Those details will show whether the geographic change produces a practical resilience benefit.