Tech giant Naver and AI leader Nvidia have formed a landmark strategic partnership that would soon see Morocco emerge as an influential global player in Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure.
This influential group — which also comprises AI infrastructure provider Nexus Core Systems and international investment firm Lloyd Capital — plans to build a world-class AI data center in Morocco.
The ambitious initiative is expected to host a 500MW AI supersite, run by 100% renewable energy, which will also act as a sovereign AI supercomputing hub for the wider end-to-end Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) area.
Construction will commence for the first phase in Q4 2025, and will be comprised of an initial 40-megawatt AI supercomputing system powered by Nvidia’s state-of-the-art Blackwell (GB200) GPUs. The center will grow incrementally, moving up to its full size.
The strategic geographical position of Morocco – only 15 km from Europe, and served by several subsea fiber-optic cables – was also a deciding factor in choosing the location. The positioning offers direct exposure to the EMEA markets where the money is and acts as a data traffic gateway.
In addition, the consortium has a renewable long-term power purchase agreement in place with UAE-headquartered energy company TAQA, further demonstrating a commitment to sustainable and secure operations.
The move is a significant one for Naver’s international AI ambitions: It already has a big presence in Asia and the Middle East. The Naver Cloud together with its partners will manage the platform, and provide AI-based services with a robust cloud system.
Central to the initiative is the emphasis on data sovereignty, ensuring that data processing, storage and operations are managed locally, inside Moroccan sovereignty, addressing the trend of a rising global demand for data protection and independence.
Morocco has been investing heavily into its digital infrastructure with a “Digital Morocco” strategy and investing in the modernization of its digital backbone.
This new collaboration will reinforce further Morocco’s status in the region as a main digital hub; encouraging more international investments in cloud computing and AI, resulting in more job creation and transfer of knowledge.