President-elect Donald Trump (pictured) reportedly secured a $20 billion investment from United Arab Emirates-based property billionaire Hussain Sajwani to build data centres across the US.

Associated Press reported the investment by Sajwani’s DAMAC Properties highlights Trump’s ability to strike deals with large entities, although they did not always come to fruition during his first term as president.

“I’m thrilled to announce today that DEMAC will be investing at least 20 billion dollars over a very short period of time into the United States and they may go double or even somewhat more than double that amount of money,” Trump stated in a video hosted by USA Today.

Sajwani explained the data centre investment would focus on AI and cloud for hyperscalers.

Bloomberg reported the deal’s first phase would span the states of Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana, with Trump characterising it as crucial to keeping the US competitive across emerging technologies.

Trump stated he will move large investments through the required regulatory, environmental and permit processes quickly.

Reuters reported DAMAC opened a Trump-branded golf course in Dubai in 2017 and Sajwani celebrated the New Year with Trump in Florida.

During a press conference in December 2024, Trump announced SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son committed to invest $100 billion in the US over the next four years.

Trump is due to be sworn in as president on 20 January.

The race to provide generative AI services has led to a large investment cycle among large tech companies.

Microsoft president Brad Smith recently stated the company would spend approximately $80 billion on AI-enabled data centres in the year to end-June.