United Arab Emirates: The UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, Khazna Data Centres, and Agility announced a pilot to implement Phaidra’s AI technology to accelerate energy efficiency across data centres and district cooling operations in the UAE.

The announcement was made on the sidelines of the World Governments Summit in Dubai and builds on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) previously signed between the Ministry and Agility.

The MoU, signed during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

As part of the initiative, the pilot will evaluate the deployment of advanced control system technology developed by Phaidra, a global leader in artificial intelligence agents for optimising AI infrastructure.

Phaidra’s AI agents orchestrate the complex power, cooling and workload management systems that underpin modern AI data centers for peak tokens-per-watt efficiency — a critical consideration as AI workloads drive higher energy and performance requirements.

This initiative builds upon Khazna’s existing collaboration with NVIDIA to accelerate AI infrastructure development across the MEA region.

Khazna is designing and building next-generation AI factories using the NVIDIA DSX Blueprint — an open and comprehensive reference architecture for large-scale AI infrastructure.

Khazna’s hyperscale operational expertise will support the deployment and evaluation of Phaidra’s reinforcement learning agents across selected data centre campuses.

The pilot will assess the potential to significantly reduce cooling energy consumption, increase IT capacity, and enhance the resilience and reliability of mission-critical AI infrastructure, particularly in high ambient-temperature environments.

The multi-party collaboration enables the Ministry, Khazna, and Agility to assess opportunities to scale AI-enabled optimisation solutions more broadly across the UAE, advancing sustainability and energy-efficiency objectives aligned with the UAE Net Zero 2050 Strategy and the Ministry’s Energy Efficiency Strategy.

Sharif Al Olama, Undersecretary for Energy and Petroleum Affairs at the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, said: “Enhancing the efficiency of energy-intensive infrastructure, especially data centers and artificial intelligence applications, is a key pillar of the UAE’s competitiveness and sustainability agenda. This partnership comes within the framework of adopting practical solutions based on advanced technology, which contribute to reducing energy consumption, enhancing the reliability of the infrastructure, and advancing the country’s leadership in developing the new generation of artificial intelligence data centers.”

Tarek Sultan, Chairman of Agility, said: “This initiative underscores the importance of effective public-private collaboration as AI reshapes global digital and physical infrastructure. As AI workloads scale, infrastructure efficiency becomes a binding constraint. Advanced AI control systems allow complex power and cooling environments to operate as integrated, adaptive systems - materially improving efficiency, resilience, and long-term economics. Phaidra brings deep capability in intelligent data center control, and Khazna is setting the benchmark for sustainable hyperscale data centers. Together, this collaboration supports the UAE’s ambition to lead at the intersection of physical infrastructure, digital capability, and sustainability.”

Hassan Alnaqbi, CEO, Khazna Data Centers, said: “AI-driven demand is fundamentally reshaping the requirements of modern data centers. As the operators powering tomorrow’s digital economies, we carry a clear responsibility: to scale sustainably while enabling nations to achieve their digital and AI ambitions. This pilot reflects that commitment. By advancing intelligent efficiency through collaboration, we want to ensure that the infrastructure underpinning AI and digital growth is as sustainable as it is powerful.”

Jim Gao, CEO, Phaidra, said: “AI infrastructure is fundamentally different from traditional data centers. The previous technologies that got us here no longer suffice at gigawatt-scale. Phaidra is humbled by the opportunity to partner closely with NVIDIA, Khazna, Agility, and the UAE MoEI to pioneer next-gen digital infrastructure in the MEA region.”