Morocco has been selected as the site for a $1.2 billion AI data center described as the first sovereign AI infrastructure platform of its kind in Africa, with the project unveiled at GITEX Africa 2026 in Marrakech.
The Nexus AI Factory will be built by a consortium comprising U.S. AI infrastructure specialist Nexus Core Systems, Nvidia, South Korean cloud and AI company Naver and global investment firm Lloyd Capital. Morocco was chosen over South Africa and other African competitors, with investors citing the country’s political stability, strategic location and existing infrastructure.
The facility will be located in the suburbs of Casablanca and will operate sovereign AI computing services across the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. It will be powered by renewable energy under a strategic supply contract with UAE-headquartered international power producer TAQA.
In its first phase, the data center will operate with 40 megawatts of AI supercomputing infrastructure powered by Nvidia’s latest Blackwell GB200 graphics processing units. The facility is expected to expand in stages to a maximum of 500 megawatts.
The project is intended to position Morocco as an AI gateway connecting Africa, Europe and beyond, as the shift from a data economy to what developers describe as an intelligence economy pushes computing, power, cooling and connectivity requirements well beyond the limits of traditional data centers.
