 Welcome to JSAT Europe and our live today events on 2023 predictions. I'm Jean-Marc Lehmann, joining me today is Henry Sutton, founder of the Gulf Data Center Association. Henry, welcome to JSA. I think what you're doing is quite extraordinary in a very exciting region with a lot of billions of dollars being deployed. Before we delve into what the association is doing, because you're still quite young in this journey, give us a taste of what the market looks like at the moment, and what can we expect in 2023 of the Gulf region with a bit of a linking to Europe, of course. Absolutely. Well, thank you first of all for having me on this TV show. It's fantastic. Okay, so what's going on the Middle East? I think that there's a lot of noise that's been coming through in the region for the last year or so. It's been building and building and building. And I think 2023 is going to be the year where the Middle East really becomes the next market that everyone's trying to develop and get into. I think there are a couple of good reasons for that. The markets themselves are quite underserved from a data center capacity perspective. But also, I think there's a lot of change going on in the region as well, some really positive change. Almost every economy in the Arabian Gulf at the moment is diversifying away from hydrocarbons. It's becoming an easier location to invest in, to develop and build in. And I think that's kind of opening the doors to more interest from both the hyperscalers and the world's largest developers as well in particularly. I also think that previous to the last 10 years or so we've had a region that's been kind of dominated by local players. But as we know from the biggest global markets, you tend to see an entry of the big international operators coming to markets when they start to grow. And we're about to start seeing that here in the Middle East. So it's certainly a very exciting time. There's a lot of big numbers being pushed out at the moment. Lots of local announcements about multiple billions of dollars being invested from Saudi Arabia to Qatar to Oman to the UAE. And I think we're going to see a lot more of that. It's funny to say that because when you look especially at Saudi Arabia, if it doesn't say a billion, it doesn't even sound right. I want to kind of bridge as well what the region, the Gulf region is doing with Europe. Because both sides are transforming a lot. So Europe is a bit more mature, it's a bit more legacy. The Gulf, everything is being built is new. But how are the two regions working together to build the sector? That's a great question. Well, I think there are two components where I think we're seeing a lot of activity. First off, outside of Dave's Centre, there's a lot of brand new subsea cable activity going on. So there are multiple brand new cables coming into the Gulf region, or being planned and will hopefully more be announced in the near future. And I think that connectivity, that improving of connectivity between Europe and the Middle East at a subsea level is also really kind of promoting that cross-connection between the two continents. I think then on a data centre level, how is Europe kind of looking at the Middle East? So for a lot of the major customers in data centre space, the decision makers are still in Europe. They're still making decisions from Europe themselves. So I think that there's always going to be a strong connection between the Middle East and Europe, especially at a hyperscale level. And I think that those decisions and the activity from the Europe side is pretty clear. We're seeing more people come to the region visiting the Middle East more often, specifically the Gulf nations. We're getting a lot of activity at the moment. There are lots of big things happening in this region as well that are really gaining European interests. I think the most obvious one is the World Cup and Qatar. There's been a lot of firsts for the region by hosting that World Cup there, and that's definitely been driving a lot of discussion forwards. I think also on a political level, we're seeing better relations in a lot of markets. For example, Kingsman Bahrain as well has been doing a lot of work with Europe and other states across the Middle East trying to lead the way of creating more opportunity to work together collaboratively. I think those kind of examples are very promising for Europe as well. I'm not going to ask if you're supporting Morocco or France. I'll leave that question in the open. That is very interesting because it really is happening all the way from Morocco to Saudi Arabia and then all the way around Egypt, UAE and all that. I think you're going to answer my next question because my next question is why launch the Gulf Data Center Association? I think you kind of hinted a lot why, but give us more of the inside story of your side of the push. Sure. I think the first piece is the Middle East still remains quite in a fake place. There's not a transparency in any of the markets at the moment. I think it's a very difficult place to walk into and create development in comparison to almost anywhere in Europe. One of the key core reasons for establishing the Gulf Data Center Association was to create some transparency to make it easier for people to come and consider the region for development. I specifically say that the Gulf region in particular, which is in need of a lot more capacity coming through, but also for the local markets themselves. Historically, this region has been very telco dominated and that's kind of prevented a lot of new entrants coming into the market for a long time. I'm here to say that is changing dramatically and very quickly. At the moment, markets are opening up. Today I'm calling in from Bahrain. We have an open telecoms market there, for example, and we're going to see that roll out into other markets across the GCC as well. For the association itself, we wanted to make sure that we had a platform where people can come and easily get information about the markets that they're operating in or want to invest in. We wanted people to have a place where they can network, where people can get together and think about a region as opposed to just a single market. I think it was an opportunity for us to work on behalf of the sector in this region and put something together. As you've already stated, we're quite young. We're about three and a half months in, but we've already grown our following. We have 450 people coming through. We are sponsor funded, which is another excellent point for us. We're trying to be there to serve the industry and to serve the region as well. Interesting. Maybe something a bit more hard to talk about, the emission culture. I was just going to ask, on the international side, on the international players that are coming into the region, do you think human rights issues in some of the countries kind of hinder a little bit of the investments? Our company is now a sector looking at human rights, LGBT rights, human rights as a whole. Does that hinder the process at the moment or the industry kind of goes along? I think that's a very interesting question. It's a difficult one to answer. I think that the Qatar World Cup has had a bit of misfortune, if I'm honest. There's been a lot of developments in the country there to kind of bring forward a lot of opportunity and there's been a lot of European news, particularly about talking about rights and challenges there. From a data center perspective, my view on the region is that actually it's rapidly going through cultural change. It's rapidly catching up with mentality and thoughts that we have had in Europe for a very long time. A lot of the countries that we're dealing with at the moment are not 100 years old. A lot of them are only around the 50-year mark. So I think that for them to rapidly kind of catch up, I think they're making good effort and they're making good strides to do so. Do I think it's going to hinder any investment? No, because again, everyone here is conscious of the need to be more considerate of labour laws and everything else that comes to it to kind of match European standards. So I don't think that will hinder at all. I think it's a good thing. It will bring more change and more progress to the region. Interesting. I had the opportunity to go to Saudi Arabia early in the year and there's a lot of work to be done, but I was quite surprised with a lot of things I saw on a positive front. Absolutely. And what I'd be saying to people at the moment, Saudi Arabia was a very different place five, 10 years ago. Maybe 12 months ago. Yeah. And it's now going through, I describe it as kind of a beautiful change. People are very, very friendly in Saudi Arabia. It's really opening up. And I would not let anyone, if that would be a hinder to anyone being concerned about travelling, it's going through rapid cultural and political change at the moment. The economy is opening up very, very quickly. There are going to be some huge opportunities for the days in the sector there as we move forward. It is the largest Gulf state in terms of population, just under 40 million people there. So I only see opportunity and positivity there. OK. Then, Erie, three and a half months old, we are about to go into 2023. So what's planned for the year ahead? You have a lot of things planned, I know. Yes. Yes, we do. I think one of the things that we wanted to build on is getting across the region. So we've already hosted in 2022 three events in three different markets. So Kiktof in Bahrain, Dubai and in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. And what we'd like to, the first Q1 is really getting around the rest of the region. So we're in Qatar in January. We're in Kuwait in February and we're in Oman in March. I think for us, we've got a big event calendar. We're aiming to do 19 events across the year next year. We want to complete the publication so that there is a market report available for our membership in every single GCC market. I want to keep those up-to-date, accurate moving forwards as well. So we're very busy in that respect. And I think that one of the things that we're mindful of, and I'll give a sneak preview now of what we're considering, is also how are we going to staff and look after the region moving forwards? How are we going to connect local graduates and local workers into the industry? And so we've got a couple of ideas of that which we'll be releasing in 2023 as well, which I think will really also add to the development of the sector. Very interesting because it would definitely foster new relationships and the growth of the human side of the sector in the region. Especially with younger generations, there's always a nice thing to see and people bring some effort into it. And then I was going to ask just to kind of circle back into our conversation, how can people reach out and learn more about what you're doing? Because I'm sure there'll be a lot of interest in what you're doing. Thank you, yes. So at the moment we're quite active on LinkedIn. So always welcome people who are on LinkedIn to search for the Gulf Data Center Association. You'll find lots of our updates and stories going through there. We're in the process of launching our fully fledged websites, which should be launched actually any day now. I was hoping to say it's launched this morning, but we'll come back to that one in a bit. So please feel free to check us out on gulfdca.com. And then we're very open to receiving emails directly to us. So I don't know how we can do that on this, but we'll work out our emails are available on LinkedIn and also on our websites. I think if anyone is thinking, my message to anyone thinking about the Middle East as a region or the Gulf in particular as a region who wants to have a discussion, we're very open. We can offer guidance on what to be thinking about, what to look for. We're well connected locally as well. So there's lots of opportunities to bring people together and get their journey into the region started. And then for the local market who are already here, if I haven't spoken to you already, I will be trying to get around to you as soon as possible. But always feel free to welcome, you're always welcome to our events and we look forward to seeing everybody. Just go and knock on the door and the door will open. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you to our viewers as well for tuning into JSATV Live. Don't forget to check our social channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking.