The UAE is set to invest CAD$70bn (USD$50bn) in Canadian AI and energy projects.

The commitment was mentioned in a statement issued by Prime Minister Mark Carney, but details are vague. Targeted sectors will include “critical minerals, energy, ports, and AI,” but there was no mention of timelines.

This is one of several deals signed between the two countries following Carney’s visit to the Gulf state, where he met the President of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan.

The statement also mentioned that Canada’s Minister of International Trade would lead a Canadian business delegation to the UAE in early 2026, with an eye to encourage Emirati investors and sovereign wealth funds to invest in “LNG, critical minerals, ports, data infrastructure, and more.”

Canada is a fast-growing data center market. According to DC Byte, around 9GW of the country’s total IT capacity – around 10.3GW – is mostly constituted by projects currently still in development.

Operators have taken particular note of the country’s abundance of green energy, as 60 percent of its electricity comes from hydropower.

The UAE has become a major player in the data center space by building facilities at home while funneling capital into projects abroad.

Domestically, it has Khazna Data Centers, which is delivering the infrastructure layer for Stargate UAE, as well as partnering with Microsoft to offer cloud services to the region.

Internationally, the UAE has MGX, an AI investment vehicle owned by the country’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala Investment Company. MGX was one of the original backers of Stargate in the US, and the firm recently acquired part of Aligned Data Centers.