Siada, an IOPn enterprise, and Innovation City, the UAE’s premier AI-powered free zone, today announced they have secured exclusive access to the UAE’s first sovereign AI data center for their business ecosystem – live, operational, and ready inside Innovation City Ras Al Khaimah. The facility operated by Siada, is the first deployment of sovereign AI compute, in a planned network of data centers, with additional sites to follow across the UAE and wider region.
This is not a pilot. This is not a future promise. This is sovereign frontier AI infrastructure running now.
While the world’s biggest tech companies fight for NVIDIA B200 GPU allocation with waitlists stretching into 2027, Siada has secured, installed, and activated them, with Innovation City as launch partner and home to the first deployment. Every computation happens on UAE soil. Every byte of data stays under UAE jurisdiction. Full sovereignty – guaranteed.
Founders and enterprises inside Innovation City can access this power by the hour, reserve long-term capacity, or deploy fully managed on-premises environments where Siada runs their models in isolated, sovereign infrastructure from day one.
The division of roles is clear: Siada builds, owns, and operates the sovereign compute infrastructure, while Innovation City provides the ecosystem where it goes live first – giving the free zone’s companies an advantage no other jurisdiction can match. Together, IOPn and Innovation City understand the brutal realities tech builders face: rationed compute, data residency risks, regulatory friction, and ecosystems that treat AI as an afterthought.
Innovation City’s AI companies get immediate access to the world’s most sought-after GPUs, wrapped in a purpose-built ecosystem designed specifically for them to win. Gaming studios building real-time AI experiences, fintech platforms running regulated workloads, and AI-native founders now operate at the frontier – faster than anywhere else in the region.
“This partnership with Siada proves what makes Innovation City different,” said Paul Dawalibi, CEO of Innovation City. “We are not another free zone chasing the AI wave. We are leading it by deeply understanding the exact pain points of technology and AI companies – and solving them head-on with sovereign compute infrastructure that no one else delivers at this scale. If you are an AI company serious about building the future, this is the only ecosystem engineered to help you succeed at speed.”
“Sovereignty isn’t just about where data sits – it’s about who gets to decide,” said Mojtaba Asadian, CEO of IOPn. “IOPn was built from the ground up so that people, businesses, and governments retain genuine agency over their own data, identity, and intelligence – the right to choose their infrastructure, not have it chosen for them. Building Siada is not just a regional milestone. It is a blueprint for how sovereign AI should be built everywhere – infrastructure that hands control back to the people and institutions it serves, in step with the UAE’s vision for the future of data safeguarding.”
As GCC regulators tighten scrutiny on cross-border data flows, in-country sovereign compute is no longer optional – it’s table stakes. The leaders are already running on it today, inside Innovation City.
Sovereign AI in the Middle East now has a clear address: Innovation City, Ras Al Khaimah.
Join the waitlist for sovereign compute at https://siada.cloud/
About Innovation City
Innovation City is the UAE’s groundbreaking AI-powered free zone based in Ras Al Khaimah, purpose-built for the industries of tomorrow – Web3, artificial intelligence, gaming, robotics, healthtech, and beyond. Under the leadership of CEO Paul Dawalibi, it has become the region’s most ambitious ecosystem for founders who refuse to accept yesterday’s rules.
Learn more at www.innovationcity.com
About Siada
Siada, an IOPn enterprise, is the Middle East’s first genuinely sovereign AI compute cloud – built, not retrofitted, for sovereignty. Operating live NVIDIA B200 GPU infrastructure from Ras Al Khaimah’s Innovation City, Siada gives businesses and governments on-demand, reserved, or fully managed on-premises access to frontier AI compute, with every workload processed and every byte of data held on UAE soil, under UAE law. Where hyperscale clouds compete by adding features on top of pooled, shared infrastructure, Siada is architected from the ground up around single-jurisdiction control, hardware-isolated tenancy, and an in-country data vault – making sovereignty an attestable guarantee rather than a marketing layer. Siada serves fintech, digital health, government-adjacent, and AI-native enterprise customers across the region for whom data residency isn’t optional. Made in the Emirates, stays in the Emirates.
About Ras Al Khaimah
Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), the UAE’s fourth largest Emirate, is defined by its natural beauty, rich heritage and forward-looking vision under HH Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi. Committed to sustainable growth, economic diversification and innovation, RAK is an attractive place to live, work and invest. Strategically located within four hours of one third of the world’s population, RAK serves as a gateway to the Middle East and beyond. Its diversified economy sees no sector contribute more than 27% of GDP. The Emirate offers a competitive, business-friendly environment with 100% foreign ownership, zero income tax and low corporate tax. Home to over 50,000 companies, supported by RAKEZ and Innovation City, RAK has held strong ‘A’ range credit ratings since 2008. With a population of 0.4 million representing over 150 nationalities, RAK combines high quality of life with accessible luxury. Landmark hospitality projects in the pipeline include Wynn, Four Seasons and Nobu, added to the existing Waldorf Astoria and Ritz-Carlton, while RAK Central will redefine its commercial and residential landscape. Year-round sunshine, competitive living costs and a dynamic lifestyle position Ras Al Khaimah as a land of opportunity.