Core42, the digital infrastructure arm of Abu Dhabi’s technology group G42, has secured a 20-megawatt lease at a converted data center in downtown Minneapolis. The move, reported by Bloomberg, marks another significant step in the company’s strategy to build out a formidable AI infrastructure network across the United States, underpinned by a key strategic partnership between the UAE and the US.
Quick Facts
- Leases 20MW capacity in Minneapolis data center.
- Part of the US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership.
- Adds to AI supercomputers in California and Texas.
Underpinning the US-UAE AI Partnership
Core42’s expansion is more than a commercial real estate deal; it’s a direct outcome of the US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership. This government-level agreement mandates that for every dollar the UAE invests in Middle East data centers using American technology, it must invest a matching dollar in US-based AI infrastructure.
This bilateral commitment ensures that as G42 builds its regional AI capabilities with US tech, it simultaneously contributes to the growth of the American AI ecosystem. The growing network of data centers and supercomputers across the US is the physical manifestation of this strategic pact, positioning G42 as a major global AI infrastructure player.
Building a US Supercomputing Network
The Minneapolis facility joins a substantial and growing US footprint for Core42. The company has already established a network of high-performance AI supercomputers through a partnership with California-based AI chip company Cerebras Systems. This Condor Galaxy network now delivers 20 exaFLOPs of AI compute across facilities in California, Texas, and now Minnesota.
Further cementing its presence, Core42 commissioned the Maximus-01 supercomputer at TeraWulf’s Lake Mariner data center campus in Buffalo, New York, in late 2023. Ranked as the world’s 20th most powerful supercomputer by the Top500 list, Maximus-01 is powered by over 9,000 AMD Instinct MI300X GPUs and delivers 114.50 petaflops of performance for large-scale AI model training and inference.
Core42’s commitment to the New York site includes a ten-year lease with TeraWulf, signed in 2024, for over 70 megawatts of infrastructure, with an option to expand by an additional 135 megawatts.
From Office Space to AI Powerhouse
The Minneapolis data center, located at 1001 Third Avenue South, is a six-story property converted from office space by Virginia-based developer Legacy Investing. The developer spent more than $70 million on the project, increasing the site’s capacity from roughly two megawatts to 21 megawatts.
In January 2024, the property was acquired for $235 million through a joint venture between Cloud Capital and Bahrain-based asset manager Arcapita, with plans to further expand its capacity to 31MW. At the time of the acquisition, Arcapita noted the data center was primarily leased long-term to a “leading provider of sovereign AI and cloud inferencing solutions.”
With an engineering office opened in San Francisco in 2024 and a growing team of over 30 employees across its US operations, G42 is signaling a long-term plan to compete directly in the American AI market.
About Core42
Core42 is the digital transformation and AI enablement arm of Abu Dhabi’s G42. The company specializes in providing sovereign cloud solutions, AI infrastructure, and digital services to public sector and large enterprise clients. It operates a vast network of data centers and supercomputers to support large-scale AI training and deployment.
Source: Middle East AI News
