RIYADH: The Middle East is set to record the world’s fastest growth in data center investment through 2050, driven by an artificial intelligence boom and coordinated infrastructure policies, PwC said.  The region could attract $1.1 trillion in cumulative data center capital expenditure by 2050, according to PwC’s Global Data Centre Outlook, even as its share of global spending remains relatively small in absolute terms.  Globally, data center investment is projected to reach $31.6 trillion through 2050 under PwC’s central scenario, with spending potentially approaching $50 trillion if AI adoption accelerates faster than expected.  The Kingdom’s data center capacity rose to more than 467 megawatts in the first quarter of 2026, from 68 MW in 2021, according to official Saudi data, while investments in data centers and digital infrastructure exceeded SR56.2 billion ($14.87 billion).  Clara Cutajar, global infrastructure leader, PwC Australia, said: “AI infrastructure is becoming one of the defining capital allocation challenges of the next generation. It cuts across technology, energy, real estate, supply chains, regulation and financing.”  She added: “This changes how infrastructure investors need to think about capital requirements, risk and returns.”  According to the PwC report, the Middle East’s share is also the fastest-growing on a compound annual growth rate basis, “due to both its lower existing installed base of data centres and its ability to compress building timelines by aligning energy, capital, planning, and developer pipelines through a single coordinated front door.”  Coordinated policy advantage  PwC highlighted the region’s ability to coordinate energy, capital, planning and developer pipelines as a competitive advantage, allowing Middle Eastern markets to potentially compress data-centre development timelines.  The report said this coordinated approach, combined with the region’s relatively low installed base, was a key reason the Middle East was projected to record the fastest growth rate in data-centre capital expenditure through 2050.  Supply-chain risks  Under a scenario involving tighter export controls on advanced semiconductors and retaliatory restrictions on critical raw materials, the Middle East is the most proportionally exposed region in the forecast, with cumulative capital expenditure falling 29 percent.  PwC said the impact would be concentrated in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, where planned capacity depends heavily on attracting internationally mobile AI workloads.