Qatar's Gulf Capital Bets Big on Southeast Asia's AI Buildout
Qatar's Ooredoo Group, Nvidia, and Nokia have unveiled Zankore, a dedicated AI compute and neocloud platform anchored in Indonesia, targeting 1 gigawatt of AI capacity over the next three years. The venture already has blue-chip customers contracted for roughly 200 MW of capacity planned for the first half of 2027.
Ooredoo Group is the founding shareholder and lead investor, holding a 49% stake in Zankore and committing an initial $800 million over five years. The group is majority-owned by the Qatari government but listed and independently managed, operating across nine markets in MENA and Southeast Asia and serving nearly 150 million customers.
Collectively, shareholders are making a multi-billion-dollar commitment to the platform. The initial 200 MW of AI capacity will be funded through a combination of equity and debt. Zankore is forecast to generate approximately $13 billion in revenue and $9 billion in cumulative EBITDA over five years. Ooredoo Group's proportionate EBITDA contribution is expected to reach around $600 million.
How the platform works
Zankore's neocloud model centers on GPU-as-a-Service — renting high-performance graphics processing units over the internet, widely used to train AI models. An orchestration layer will manage how GPU capacity is shared across users and clusters, leveraging Nvidia technology to recover stranded power across the GPU fleet. According to the company, this enables up to 40% more compute power, expanding Zankore's capacity to serve customers and generate revenue.
'Nvidia is bringing their compute and AI expertise, as well as general architecture, while Nokia is bringing their networking expertise,' Ooredoo Group CEO Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo told Fortune.
Indonesia as a launchpad
The initial 200 MW of AI capacity will be sourced from multiple data center providers with facilities across Indonesia, with the platform designed to expand across Southeast Asia as it scales. Ooredoo's Indonesian affiliate, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) — the country's second-largest mobile telecoms company, formed via a $6 billion merger in 2022 — is a key operating partner.
Fakhroo described Indonesia as a 'great base' from which to operate in Asia, citing its large and digitally active population, resource wealth, geographic position, and what he called 'very forward-looking regulation.' He also pointed to an ample supply of land and diversified power sources ranging from local natural gas to hydroelectric.
KPMG forecasts Indonesia's digital economy will exceed $130 billion by 2030. Fakhroo cited a McKinsey study noting that AI adoption across Southeast Asia is showing stronger momentum than the global average.
'We've been positioning ourselves for a good 36 months, or even more now, to steadily migrate from a traditional telco to a leading digital infrastructure provider,' Fakhroo told Fortune. 'Zankore is the latest building block in that evolution.'
The bottom line
This is what capital allocation looks like when regulation stays out of the way. Indonesia's combination of a young population, diversified energy supply, and business-friendly policy framework is drawing serious institutional money — not pledges, but contracted megawatts and committed equity. Zankore's $9 billion EBITDA forecast over five years is a market verdict on Southeast Asia's AI infrastructure gap.
For American technology firms like Nvidia, the deal also underscores a straightforward reality: the global AI buildout is not waiting for Washington to sort out its export debates. Where clear rules and investable conditions exist, capital moves fast — and the Gulf is proving an increasingly assertive allocator of it.
