Ooredoo commits $800M to AI infrastructure platform Zankore in Southeast Asia expansion

Ooredoo Group, the Doha-based telecommunications conglomerate, is placing a substantial bet on artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company has committed approximately $800 million to Zankore, a newly formed platform designed to deliver AI compute and cloud services across Southeast Asia. As the lead investor, Ooredoo will hold a 49% stake in the venture, joining forces with Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, NVIDIA, and Nokia in what represents the company's formal entry into the rapidly expanding AI infrastructure sector.

The timing reflects a broader recognition among major telecom operators that AI compute capacity has become as strategically vital as the fiber and cable networks that built their original empires. Zankore is being engineered to provide what the industry calls full-stack AI capabilities—the complete technical architecture needed to train, deploy, and run artificial intelligence applications at scale. The platform is targeting one gigawatt of NVIDIA DSX AI Factory capacity, a measure of raw computational power that speaks to the ambition of the undertaking. Indonesia will serve as the initial launch point, with expansion across the region to follow.

For Ooredoo, the investment extends a digital infrastructure strategy that already encompasses international fiber networks, subsea cable systems, and data centers positioned for AI workloads. The company has spent years building the foundational plumbing of the internet across the Middle East and Asia. Zankore represents a deliberate move up the value chain—from providing connectivity and basic computing resources to offering the specialized infrastructure that artificial intelligence demands. Southeast Asia, with its rapidly growing digital economy and rising demand for cloud services, presents the natural geography for this expansion.

The deal involved a complex web of legal and regulatory considerations that required Baker McKenzie to assemble lawyers across multiple continents. The firm's Dubai-based corporate partner Adnan Doha led the effort, coordinating with specialists in trade controls, finance, intellectual property, and technology law stationed in Washington, London, Singapore, Jakarta, and Sydney. Georges Abi Saab, Ooredoo's Group General Counsel, oversaw the company's side of the negotiation. The scale and cross-border nature of the transaction—touching jurisdictions across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the United States—demanded precisely this kind of distributed expertise.

Ooredoo's Group Chief Strategy and M&A Officer, Thomas Chevane, framed the investment as consistent with the company's disciplined approach to growth. The statement carries weight: Ooredoo is not chasing every technology trend, but rather making calculated moves that align with long-term strategic positioning. The company sees AI compute as a market with significant growth potential over the coming years, and Southeast Asia as the region where that growth will be most acute. By securing a controlling stake in Zankore alongside established technology partners, Ooredoo gains both exposure to that growth and influence over how the platform develops.

What makes this deal notable is not merely the dollar amount, though $800 million is substantial. It is the signal it sends about how major infrastructure companies are repositioning themselves in an AI-driven world. Telecom operators built their fortunes on the ability to move data. Now they are investing heavily in the ability to process it—to provide the computational substrate on which artificial intelligence runs. Zankore, still in its early stages, will need to execute flawlessly to justify the capital commitment. But the partnership structure—combining Ooredoo's infrastructure expertise, NVIDIA's chip technology, Nokia's networking equipment, and IOH's regional presence—suggests the venture has assembled the pieces required to compete in a market that is only beginning to take shape.