Part of the country's digital transformation plan
Morocco intends to build a 500MW renewable energy data center.
The country’s digital transition minister, Amal El Fallah Saghrouchni, told Reuters that the facility would be located in Dakhla, a city run by Moroccan authorities in the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Development timelines or information about the renewable energy source were not provided.
The minister also told African Business that she wanted “at least three data centers in Morocco.” Other than the aforementioned Dakhla facility, one would be located in the north and the other in the central city of Benguerir.
Saghrouchni was previously executive president of Morocco’s International Center for Artificial Intelligence, and was appointed to her current role following the October 2024 announcement of the country’s digital strategy, titled “Digital Morocco 2030.”
Improvements in digital infrastructure, including data centers, are necessary for the completion of the strategy, which has deemed the outsourcing sector as a potential growth area for Morocco.
Morocco’s data center market is small, but interest from international operators is growing. Last month, Korea’s Naver announced a partnership with Nvidia and investment firm Lloyds Capital to build a 500MW data center in the country, and in March 2024, Oracle launched a cloud region in collaboration with data center operator N+One.
