Syntys Begins Construction of 20MW AI-Ready Data Centre in Qatar

Doha, Qatar - Syntys has started construction of a 20-megawatt (MW) data centre in Qatar to add capacity for large-scale computing, marking the start of work with a groundbreaking ceremony on 12 November.

The groundbreaking was attended by Qatar's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, His Excellency Mohammed bin Ali bin Mohammed Al Mannai. Google and Microsoft sent senior representatives, as did Ooredoo Group, Kahramaa, Qatar Free Zones Authority, the National Cyber Security Agency and several local banks.

Ooredoo Group was represented by Group CEO Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Deputy Chairman Dr. Nasser Marafih, Group Regional CEO for the Middle East Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad bin Nasser Al Thani and Group Chief Financial Officer Abdulla Ahmed Al Zaman. Kahramaa President H.E. Eng. Abdulla bin Ali Al Theyab, Qai Chairman Abdulla bin Hamad Al Misnad and the Dutch Ambassador to Qatar, H.E. Ferdinand Lahnstein, were also pictured at the ceremony.

Syntys, which designs, builds and operates data centres, said the new facility is part of its plan to expand in Qatar through new construction as well as acquisitions. Earlier in 2026 it bought QData QFZ LLC, taking on two carrier-neutral, Tier III-compliant facilities that were already in operation.

Four campuses in Qatar are now owned and operated by Syntys, which lets customers run their main and disaster recovery environments at separate sites without leaving Qatar, Syntys said.

The new building will be Tier III-compliant and able to take a range of rack densities, among them higher-density set-ups for GPU-accelerated AI and high-performance computing (HPC). As a carrier-neutral site, it will let customers pick their own connectivity providers and plan network resilience around their own architecture and operating needs.

Work is taking place on an existing Syntys campus that already has power, fibre and an experienced operations team in place. According to the company, starting from a working campus gives it a head start on power, connectivity and operating capability, so the new capacity can come online faster.

Syntys said cloud platforms are one of the main ways organisations use AI, whether through features built into business software or the tools developers use to write applications. The computing behind those services can need much higher rack power densities and more specialised cooling than conventional workloads, it added.

Regional demand for this kind of infrastructure is rising, the company said. It pointed to a Mordor Intelligence forecast in which the Middle East hyperscale data centre market grows by 23.5% a year, on a compound basis, from 2025 to 2031.

Sunita Bottse, Chief Executive Officer of Syntys, said: “Qatar is our home market, and we are seeing demand here translate into larger, denser and more varied deployments. We are investing to meet that demand and designing this capacity for the densities our customers are moving toward.”

Syntys already designs and runs the facilities that host Ooredoo’s sovereign AI cloud, which is powered by NVIDIA Hopper GPUs. The company said the new project draws on that experience with high-density computing.

Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Group CEO of Ooredoo Group, said: “Digital infrastructure is the nation-building foundation of the modern economy. I am proud of Syntys’ latest milestone investment, which reinforces Qatar’s capacity for cloud computing, AI and advanced digital services. Ultimately, the success of digital transformation will be measured by the opportunities we create for businesses, talent and future generations.”

Beyond the extra 20MW, Syntys said hosting workloads inside the country keeps sensitive data within Qatar’s borders and gives local developers and businesses a stronger base from which to build digital services and deliver them closer to users. Its network of operational facilities across key MENA markets serves hyperscalers, wholesale colocation providers and AI infrastructure deployments.

Ground has been broken as Qatar pursues its Digital Agenda 2030, a plan built on six strategic pillars, one of them Digital Infrastructure, that aims for an economic impact of approximately $10.99 billion (QAR 40 billion) by 2030.