United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage - Market Share Analysis, Industry Trends & Statistics, Growth Forecasts (2024 - 2029)

The United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Market size is estimated at USD 448.5 million in 2024, and is expected to reach USD 818.70 million by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 12.80% during the forecast period (2024-2029).

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the largest data center hubs in the Middle East. More data centers are planned to be constructed in the region. Upto USD 1 billion in additional investments are projected by 2026. In 2019, Microsoft Azure launched two cloud regions in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. With aggressive investments by the UAE government in cloud computing, competitive business laws, and a strong technological infrastructure, the ICT sector in the region is forecast to continue expanding in the years ahead, leading to major demand for data center storage.

Key Highlights

• Under Construction IT Load Capacity: The upcoming IT load capacity of the UAE data center market is expected to reach 840 MW by 2029.
• Under Construction Raised Floor Space: The country's construction of raised floor area is expected to increase to 5 million sq. ft by 2029.
• Planned Racks: The country's total number of racks to be installed is expected to reach over 250,000 units by 2029. Abu Dhabi is expected to house the maximum number of racks by 2029.
• Planned Submarine Cables: There are close to four submarine cable systems connecting the United Arab Emirates, and many are under construction. One such submarine cable that was estimated to start service in 2023 is with Omani service provider Omantel and du from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), which has announced plans to link the UAE and Oman through a newly activated 275-kilometer international fiber optic submarine cable named the Oman Emirates Gateway (OEG).

United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Market Trends

IT and Telecom to Hold Significant Share

• The arrival of 5G promises a major increase in speeds, low latency, and unforeseen network capabilities. This paves the way for groundbreaking applications with real-time connectivity across everything.
• The rapidly increasing 4G penetration and the upcoming 5G wave are forcing telecom vendors to invest in the UAE data center market, leading to an increase in storage demand. According to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (UAE), in the United Arab Emirates, there were over 18.7 million active mobile phone subscribers as of March 2022.
• According to Ericsson Mobility, the country is expected to have over 80 million customers of the 5G initiative in MENA by 2025. This widespread use benefits companies and other technological advancements in the region and lays the groundwork for smart cities and worldwide communication. Furthermore, the UAE Telecom Authority set an ambitious objective of 100% 5G penetration in the country by 2025 to become the Middle East's technically prominent player in the networking system.
• 5G boasts nearly seven times faster throughput than 4G, reaching speeds of 10 Gbps compared to 1.45 Gbps. This leap complements the significant I/O throughput enabled by enterprise-grade technologies like NVMe and SSDs in servers and storage appliances. The increasing demand for NVMe in SSDs is expected to drive the market’s growth during the forecast period.

All-Flash Storage to Hold Significant Growth

• There has been a rapid growth in flash drive revenues, with enterprise storage devices having the majority of annual growth per year. With the growth in data generated by the enterprise, coupled with the growing adoption of cloud technology, the UAE data center industry has begun to gain attractive investments from the IT sector. Medium-term growth in IT spending is driven by increased demand for software and services, particularly from large enterprises looking for solutions in the areas of cloud computing, data analytics, cybersecurity, and IoT.
• Key market players have entered strategic partnerships to accelerate their business using cloud technologies. In November 2022, G42 Cloud, a division of artificial intelligence company G42 in Abu Dhabi, and German software giant SAP signed an agreement to assist businesses in accelerating their digital transformation using cloud technology. As it portrays itself as a global innovation center, the United Arab Emirates has long championed the crucial role that digital transformation plays in its economy and culture.
• In the United Arab Emirates, the advent of the metaverse is anticipated to increase the demand for big data management and analysis rapidly, requiring the allocation of more resources by businesses that want to harness its potential. With big data and analytics, data access and processing patterns demand a higher storage performance, along with increased concurrency. The NVMe-based SSD is gaining traction in the market studied.
• Since major primary storage workloads will depend on flash storage, the demand for flash storage is projected to increase in the future. This is primarily supported by NVMe’s expansion within the storage industry as a high-performance protocol across storage systems, servers, and storage area network fabrics. With data protection stepping beyond backup and restore to focus on secondary storage datasets (backups, snapshots, and replicas) being leveraged for DevOps, analytics, and testing workloads, the trend acts as a catalyst for the market studied.

United Arab Emirates Data Center Storage Industry Overview

The UAE data center storage market is moderately consolidated among the players and has gained a competitive edge in recent years. A few of the major players are Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and NetApp Inc.. These major players, with a prominent market share, focus on expanding their customer base across the region. They leverage strategic collaborative initiatives to increase their market share and profitability.

• For instance, in March 2024, Seagate launched Exos X24 CMR 7,200 rpm Helium SATA and SAS 3.5-inch 24 TB HDD with 10 platters. They are designed for maximum storage capacity and the highest rack-space efficiency. Exos X24 is purpose-built for hyperscale with performance and proven technology. The helium 3.5-inch 7,200 rpm nearline drive offers both SATA and SAS interfaces and delivers enhanced caching that performs up to 3x better than solutions that only utilize read or write caching.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support

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