A US startup claims it is building a massive 386MW AI data center in Morocco at a cost of $500 million.
Iozera.ai, which says it provides AI data storage, management, and consultancy services, will this week sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Moroccan government to develop what the company describes as a “pioneering 386MW Data Center and AI Hub” at Tetouan, in the north of Morocco near the strait of Gibraltar.
According to Iozera, its strategic partnership with the Moroccan government is “designed to democratize access to advanced AI computing resources, enhancing the availability of GPU-based processing for researchers, startups, and businesses in the US, Morocco, and globally.”
It says construction on the project will get underway in Q4 2024, and hopes it will be operational by Q2 2026.
The project will be known as Eureka Park, and alongside the data center will be home to Ryse Research, an incubator for startups and an education center to prepare Moroccans for employment at the park. It will also feature an “AI Expo,” which will showcase “the latest global AI advancements from startups and large enterprises.”
Little technical information about the campus, or the type of hardware on offer, has been released, but the planned 386MW capacity for the project puts it on a par with some of the largest data centers currently under construction around the world.
Houston, Texas-based Iozera was only incorporated in December 2023, and has no public track record of building data centers. It has not released details of how the project will be financed. DCD has contacted Iozera for further details.
A delegation from Taiwanese electronics company Pegatron, including CTO James Shue, will be present at the MoU signing, suggesting the manufacturer may be involved in the project. Pegatron’s SVR division makes servers, and in March the company announced it was developing an AI server for users looking to train large language models.
Power for the facility will apparently come from two renewable energy projects, The Noor Solar Power Complex and the Koudia Al Baida Wind Farm, which is located near the site of Eureka Park.
Morocco’s data center market is currently small in global terms. A report from ResearchandMarkets, released in March, claimed it will grow to a value of $51 million over the next three years, and that the country is currently home to 21 data centers.
Recent developments include domestic operator N+One Datacenters revealing it was building a facility in Casablanca, while in March Oracle said it was launching a Morocco cloud region, hosted within N+One infrastructure.
