UAE Plans to Invest €40 Billion in Germany, Including About 1 GW of Data Centers

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 10, the United Arab Emirates announced plans to invest €40 billion in Germany, covering sectors including industry, advanced technology, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and energy. Of this, approximately €10 billion is planned for the German state of Bavaria; the digital infrastructure investment will include the construction of new advanced data centers with a planned total capacity of about 1 GW. The investment plan was announced during UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan's first state visit to Germany.

According to a joint statement issued by the German government and the UAE, the two countries have signed a joint declaration of intent on German data center investment and will include artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, digitalization, and advanced manufacturing in subsequent cooperation. The two sides will also study cooperation on data hosting and information systems, advancing cooperation models such as "data embassies" through the construction of secure digital infrastructure.

During this state visit, UAE and German companies signed a total of 29 inter-company memoranda of understanding and agreements, with a total value exceeding €9.356 billion. The two sides also announced the establishment of a UAE-Germany Investment Committee and the resumption of the Joint Economic Committee mechanism to advance investment and project cooperation between governments and enterprises.

In addition to the €40 billion investment plan, the two countries will also advance investment and cooperation projects involving companies such as Covestro, RWE, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and Masdar. UAE energy investment company XRG has previously made an investment of approximately €15 billion in Covestro, forming the existing asset base for this expanded investment in German industry and energy.

Energy cooperation will cover liquefied natural gas, renewable energy, hydrogen, and energy efficiency, while the two countries also plan to expand cooperation in industry and advanced manufacturing. In the field of digital infrastructure, the approximately 1 GW of new data centers has become the key infrastructure direction with a clearly defined scale in this investment plan, and the German side will provide a supporting investment environment for the implementation of related projects.

In 2025, non-oil bilateral trade between the UAE and Germany reached $15.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of more than 14%; from 2021 to 2025, cumulative two-way investment flows between the two countries exceeded $10 billion. The scale of this €40 billion investment plan is significantly higher than the cumulative two-way investment over the past five years.