The UAE, a wealthy country in the Middle East that is ambitious to develop cutting-edge industries such as artificial intelligence, is actively carrying out industrial layout. The latest development is that G42, a major local digital infrastructure platform, spent $2.2 billion to acquire the remaining 40% stake in Khazna Data Center held by telecom giant e&.

The acquisition transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter. After the acquisition is completed, e& will be able to cash out a large amount of cash to reduce debt levels and obtain a one-time pre-tax profit of $1.4 billion.

It is worth mentioning that although e& is listed in the UAE, its controlling shareholder is the UAE Investment Authority (EIA), so it is essentially a local state-owned company.

Khazna is currently the largest data center (IDC) company in the Middle East and North Africa. Its main business is the design, construction and operation of data centers. It has 24 data centers in the local area and another 4 are under construction, with a total capacity of more than 235MW.

In 2022, e& will merge all its built and under-construction data centers into Khazna in exchange for a 40% stake in the latter, and G42 will own the remaining 60%.

Khazna issued a statement saying that after this acquisition, G42 also intends to introduce the UAE state-owned investment company MGX and the US private equity investment company Silver Lake Capital as minority shareholders of Khazna.

MGX was established in March 2024 by the UAE sovereign fund Mubadala Investment Company (Mubadala) and G42 Group. It mainly focuses on semiconductors, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and artificial intelligence core technology and applications. Tanoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the younger brother of UAE President Mohammed and national security adviser, is the head of sovereign funds ADQ, MGX, G42 and other institutions.