China's Tencent Cloud is seeking to expand its data center footprint in the Middle East.
In an interview with CNBC, CEO Dowson Tong explained that the company is looking to expand the number of availability zones for its cloud offering, and is "actively" exploring the possibility of building data centers in the Middle East to better serve customers in the region.
“We do intend to increase our investment in the region and establish a stronger partnership network. And that’s all in the plan,” he added, though he declined to give more specific timelines beyond 12 to 18 months, or exact countries that the company is interested in.
Beyond the Middle East, Tencent is hoping to add more availability zones in the Asia Pacific and Europe.
The Chinese cloud company already has a cloud region operating in Saudi Arabia with two availability zones, having launched in early 2025. According to Tong, customers include food delivery company Keeta and gaming firms in the area.
While the company's presence is primarily in Asia, it also has regions in North America (Silicon Valley, Virginia, Toronto), Europe (Frankfurt), and South America (São Paulo).
According to CNBC, Tencent is hoping to leverage its strong customer base in China to expand internationally. Many Chinese firms have ties or are looking to expand also into the Middle East. Among those is PC company Lenovo, which has a regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia and is building a manufacturing plant in the Kingdom.
Other Chinese cloud providers already have a presence in the Middle East, including Alibaba, which launched a second data center in Dubai in October 2025. Huawei, meanwhile, has a cloud region in Saudi Arabia.
Alibaba has been particularly bullish on its international expansion plans, having previously committed to investing $53bn on cloud and AI infrastructure outside of China.
Tencent, however, has been consistently reporting a reduction in capex during its quarterly financial reports. In the most recent quarter, the company saw capex of just RMB13.0 billion ($1.83bn), down 24 percent year-over-year (YoY) and less than Q2 2025's $2.49bn. The company said at the time it expected this to further fall in 2026. This, Tencent said, was due to “a change in terms of AI chip availability” and “supply chain constraints sourcing GPUs.”
