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Emirati Billionaire to Invest $20 Billion in U.S. Data Centers, Announces Trump

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Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani, the chairman of Dubai-based real estate developer DAMAC, has committed to investing $20 billion in the rapidly growing U.S. data center industry. Sajwani made the announcement on Tuesday during a meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at his Palm Beach, Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

The planned investment is part of a broader effort to bolster the U.S. economy, with Trump emphasizing the importance of strengthening domestic industries. The announcement comes amid Trump’s focus on economic policies that seek to curb China’s access to key technology, including chips used for advanced data centers. In his remarks, Sajwani expressed a willingness to increase the investment beyond the initial $20 billion if market conditions permit, stating, “We’re planning to invest $20 billion and even more than that, if the opportunity in the market allows us.”

Sajwani’s company, DAMAC, has already made its mark in the Middle East by owning the region’s only Trump-branded golf course in Dubai, which opened in 2017. The billionaire’s connection with Trump has grown closer, with the two having celebrated the New Year together in Florida.

While Trump has a history of promoting large investments for economic growth, the outcomes have sometimes been less substantial. For instance, a promised $10 billion Foxconn factory investment in Wisconsin, announced early in Trump’s first term, resulted in a project that was ultimately scaled back and left many promises unmet.

Sajwani’s announcement follows recent moves by other major investors, including SoftBank Group’s CEO Masayoshi Son, who, in collaboration with Trump, committed to a $100 billion investment in the U.S. over the next four years, focusing on AI. The surge in investments in AI and its supporting infrastructure, such as data centers, follows the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022, which sparked a wave of interest in generative AI technologies.

Microsoft also revealed plans to invest about $80 billion in the U.S. this fiscal year to expand its AI capabilities. The Biden administration has increasingly restricted the export of AI chips to China, aligning with Trump’s foreign policy stance and recent nominations of China hard-liners to key diplomatic and economic roles.

DAMAC and MANTRA Sign $1 Billion Deal to Tokenize Real Estate Assets in the Middle East

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Dubai’s leading developer DAMAC Group has entered into a landmark deal with MANTRA, a blockchain platform that specializes in tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs), to tokenize at least $1 billion worth of assets in the Middle East. The partnership, announced on Thursday, aims to convert rights to real estate and other assets into digital tokens on a blockchain, making them tradable and owned online.

DAMAC, a major player in Dubai’s real estate sector, has been expanding its investment portfolio to include global data centers. In a separate announcement earlier this week, DAMAC’s Chairman Hussain Sajwani and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump revealed plans to invest $20 billion in data centers across the United States in the coming years.

Amira Sajwani, DAMAC’s Managing Director of Sales & Development, expressed the company’s enthusiasm for exploring new technologies and innovation. “Partnering with MANTRA is a natural extension of our commitment to forward-thinking solutions,” she stated.

The first assets to be tokenized will be available on the MANTRA blockchain in the Middle East later this year. The partnership follows MANTRA’s earlier agreement with MAG Property Development to tokenize real estate assets worth $500 million, starting with a residential project in Dubai, the Gulf’s premier tourism and business hub.

The United Arab Emirates, and particularly Dubai, has been positioning itself as a global center for digital assets, including the cryptocurrency industry. In 2017, the Dubai Land Department launched a blockchain platform to record real estate contracts and link them to utility and telecom accounts, part of the city’s broader effort to attract leading companies in the digital and crypto sectors and establish robust virtual asset regulations.