The government of the Republic of Serbia has signed a memorandum of understanding with e& enterprise to triple its national data center capacity.

The services arm of UAE telco e& said that it would help expand the state's data center in Kragujevac, built in 2020 for €30 million ($35.2m).

That data center currently supports 1,080 racks with a capacity of 14MW, with Serbia's Office for IT and eGovernment planning to add up to 40MW.

The facility is used for government services as well as by private enterprises, including Oracle Cloud, IBM, and Huawei.

“By combining the Office’s proven eGovernment engine with e& enterprise’s global expertise and cloud ecosystem, we’re setting the stage for new data-center capacity that not only meets Serbian demand but also serves as the backbone for every startup, bank and AI workload in the Balkans, positioning Serbia as the regional hub powering digital growth for neighboring markets," e& enterprise CEO Khalid Murshed said.

Dr. Mihailo Jovanović, Director of the Office for IT and eGovernment of Serbia, added: “Our first Tier-4 build proved we can deliver world-class infrastructure; this next phase, fueled by e& enterprise’s expertise, gives us a stronger platform to expand our capacity, attract international partners, and ensure that our infrastructure meets the highest global standards for resiliency and data governance. The result will be lower latency for citizens, more runway for entrepreneurs, and a stronger digital spine for an entire region.”

The facility is not Tier IV rated, according to the Uptime Institute's list of data centers.

Alongside the data center expansion, e& enterprise and the Office will explore joint opportunities to expand data center capacity, with the preliminary agreement including 'the potential' for joint digital infrastructure initiatives in Serbia and the wider Balkans through e& and PPF Telecom.

The government announced in April plans to deploy a €36m ($42.2m) Eviden supercomputer.