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The Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region is witnessing rapid growth in AI infrastructure, with AI servers leading revenue gains in early 2025. According to CONTEXT’s SalesWatch Distribution report, AI-capable servers are now the main driver of tech-related revenue across the region.

This expansion highlights a growing focus on AI data center investments, though progress remains uneven across different countries and infrastructure categories.

The Ascendancy of AI-Capable Servers

AI servers accounted for 42% of total server revenues in Q2 2025. This is a dramatic jump from 21% in Q4 2024 and 18% in Q1 2025. The upward trend reflects rising demand for AI-optimized server platforms, with April and May 2025 investments surpassing $50 million.

Combined server revenues in those two months edged past those of Q2 2024. From January to May 2025, overall server revenues in META jumped 66%, with May showing a 106% year-on-year increase. The rise is largely fueled by AI infrastructure projects, especially in the Middle East.

Divergent Trends in Enterprise Networking and Storage

However, this momentum does not extend equally to all tech infrastructure areas. Enterprise networking and storage showed weaker performance.

The enterprise networking category, which includes business switches, routers, wireless devices, and software, saw a 21% revenue drop from January to May 2025 versus the same period last year.

Network switching took the hardest hit, with a 25% decline in switch sales and expansion modules. Wireless access points performed slightly better but still ended May with a 25% drop compared to May 2024.

This decline aligns with past volatility in networking equipment sales, affected by supply chain issues, price hikes, and changes in office space needs due to hybrid work. However, future gains are expected with Wi-Fi 7 upgrades and AI-led data center growth.

The enterprise storage segment, which covers storage area networks, HCI systems, and related software, had a flat start to 2025. There was zero growth compared to 2024 in the first five months. In May alone, revenues dipped 28% year-on-year.

The hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) sub-category was the main drag, falling 22%, while traditional arrays held steady due to a strong flash storage segment. Still, demand is likely to rise, as AI workloads require higher-capacity storage and faster bandwidth solutions.

Geographic Variations in AI Investment

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) leads AI investment in the META region. The country hosts major projects like Stargate UAE, a 1-gigawatt AI cluster in Abu Dhabi. It targets AI applications across government, energy, healthcare, education, and transport.

The UAE was also the first to give its entire population access to ChatGPT, showcasing its national commitment to AI.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is seeing gains too. Its AI server investments drove a 28% rise in server revenue in 2025 over 2024. Turkey is also ramping up, with growing UAE-Turkey collaborations, such as the upcoming 100-megawatt AI-capable data center in Ankara by UAE-based Khazna.

Uneven Growth Across Countries and Segments

In enterprise networking, South Africa and the UAE saw smaller revenue drops of just 5% compared to 2024. But Turkey and Saudi Arabia faced sharper declines of about 30% year-on-year.

This shows a divided growth pattern across the region’s infrastructure sectors.

AI Servers Are Reshaping META’s Tech Future

So far, 2025 has marked a strong start for infrastructure spending in the META region, especially compared to the past two years. AI-driven server sales are the biggest success story, indicating a major tech shift.

However, the benefits are not evenly spread. As AI servers gain ground, future growth will depend on how well countries and companies adapt their investments across storage, networking, and data center infrastructure.