Madari Space, an Abu Dhabi-based firm aiming to build data centers in space, is planning its first mission in the third quarter of 2026, founder and CEO Shareef Al Romaithi tells Joumanna Bercetche on Bloomberg's Horizons: Middle East and Africa.

Abu Dhabi

Madari Space, an Emirati company headquartered in Abu Dhabi, has announced plans to build data centers in low Earth orbit. The initiative is a response to the rapidly growing demand for data processing and storage, particularly as artificial intelligence applications expand. Traditional data centers are highly energy-intensive and contribute significantly to carbon emissions, prompting the search for more sustainable alternatives.

The company believes that space-based data centers can offer both environmental and security advantages. By processing data closer to its source in space, such as from Earth observation satellites, efficiency can be improved and sensitive information can be stored securely. Madari Space is currently in the research and development phase, with its first demonstration mission planned in collaboration with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.

Abu Dhabi firm looks to build data centers in Space

Governments and companies worldwide are racing to build new data centers amid the A.I. boom. But these facilities are energy intensive and have significant environmental impact. A U.N. report says a typical A.I. data center consumes as much power as 100000 homes and the largest centers will use 20 times that. Now one Abu Dhabi based company is looking to space as an alternative location to build infrastructure. Joining us now is Sharif. I don't make the founder and CEO of Madari Space. Really good to have you with us. OK. Hang on a second. Just explain to us what this is about. And your ultimate purpose I believe is to build data centers not on Earth not terrestrial data centers but in space. How does that work. That is correct. And thank you for hosting me. And it's a pleasure to be here to discuss a topic that is very dear to me. Madari Space is an Emirati company based in Abu Dhabi that aims at building data centers in low Earth orbit to address the exponential growth of data that is being generated both on Earth as well as in space. If you look at the data that's being generated on Earth to date we have already exceeded one hundred and eighty zettabytes of data across the entire globe of data centers. And as you know very well data centers are very energy intensive. They're extremely harmful to the environment. In fact they emit more carbon than the aviation industry which is quite alarming especially as we are seeing the rise in A.I. modeling and A.I. infrastructure going to space and placing data centers there gives us the opportunity to support the growth of data being generated both on Earth as well as in space in a sustainable and secure manner. Yeah I'm sure you've heard this word before but it sounds like a bit of a moonshot idea. Excuse the pun. Does the infrastructure allow for the build of these data centers up in space. Well first of all I must address the significant improvements in the space industry. This would not have been possible I would say maybe 15 to 20 years ago. But today with the reduced cost of launch services now the price per kilogram to launch any product or technology into space has reduced dramatically. And by addressing the data center operations in low Earth orbit we have the ability to de-risk the operations and use low Earth orbit as a testbed to mature our technology before we can advance into deeper space and tackle this is lunar economy. What would be the comparative benefits of using a data center and low Earth orbit versus a terrestrial data center. Is it operational efficiency. Is it cost. Where is the benefit going to come from for the consumer. What we are addressing multiple verticals when we're talking about data centers in space. First of all by placing data centers in space we are addressing the data that is being generated right at the source in space by 2035 for what we will expect or forecast data to exceed three thousand five hundred petabytes by sources such as Earth observation satellites and others. This data is all raw unprocessed that must be downstream to terrestrial data centers. So by placing data centers in space we have the ability to store and process this data in space enabling the data owners to make informed decisions in real time. Yeah. And I guess it's less energy intensive simply because it's cooler. Absolutely. Thinking it through correctly. Definitely. Yeah. OK. So then ultimately who who is going to be the target base. Who is your target client. Who would use this data. So based on our verticals that we plan to address we are targeting Earth observation operators and other space operators who generate data in space. We are addressing governments and big corporations with large data sets who would like to store their data in space in a secure and sustainable manner. I'll give you a good example of a European country. Estonia which has a secondary data center in Luxembourg for security reasons. Should anything happen to their data centers in Estonia they can revert to their data centers in Luxembourg where they are back to life with no loss of any national sensitive and critical data. So this can be applied to various countries that view security as an issue so we can store their sensitive and critical data in orbit. So the company is still in R&D phase. When when is it when you expect to launch. We are working very closely with Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center as well as the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs for our first mission which is planned for Q3 2026. And this mission would allow us to demonstrate our technology by storing and processing data in North. So we spend a lot of time in this program talking about the fact that UAE is making a big push into A.I. into the infrastructure on A.I. into data centers. Do you feel that being a company headquartered and based in the UAE is going to help you with your global ambitions or does it hold you back because this is a relatively small country and it might be difficult for you to get the scale that you would like to achieve. Well generally speaking data centers in space has gained a lot of traction over the past six months and being located in the UAE is quite advantageous for us given the fact that we are getting tremendous support from the UAE space agency and other stakeholders across the country. This would allow us to advance our technology and reach a maturity level that would allow us to reach commercial operations very soon.

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