Brookfield and Qatar launch $20 billion AI infrastructure joint venture

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By Andres Gonzalez, Manya Saini and Isla Binnie

DUBAI/LONDON/NEW YORK, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Brookfield and Qai, an artificial intelligence company owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, have formed a $20 billion joint venture to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure in Qatar and select international markets, the two groups said on Tuesday.

The joint venture aims to position Qatar as a leading AI hub in the Middle East, they said, and plans to create an integrated compute centre expanding regional access to high-performance computing capabilities.

The Gulf country’s $526 billion sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), said on Monday it was setting up its own national AI company, Qai, following in the steps of regional peers the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as they invest to become global AI hubs outside of the U.S. and China.

AI is reshaping global tech and attracting massive investments in both software and physical infrastructure, especially in the data centres needed to process the information. A McKinsey report from April estimated that a $5.2 trillion investment in data centres will be needed by 2030 to meet the worldwide demand for AI. 

Brookfield will invest in the joint venture with Qai through its recently launched Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Fund, which aims to invest up to $100 billion globally. 

In a separate interview not related to the announcements, QIA’s head of funds Mohsin Pirzada told Reuters: “We’ve been investing in data centres since before it was in fashion.”

He said Qatar, as one of the world’s biggest natural gas producers, benefited from increased demand for power to feed data centres. The sovereign fund has also invested in fast-growing companies in the sector including AI-driven analytics platform Databricks.

QIA’s Pirzada, asked whether he had any concerns about rising valuations for companies in the sector, said there may be a “shakeout”, but that, in an echo of the 1990s dotcom bubble, it would leave a handful of market leaders and “a massive opportunity” for investors.

“We continue to invest into the technologies and the rail guards that will support this innovation, the bricks and mortar,” Pirzada said.

(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru, Federico Maccioni in Dubai, Andres Gonzalez in London and Isla Binnie in New York, Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Anousha Sakoui and Alison Williams)