While the world hesitates, the Middle East is building the infrastructure of the future

There is a narrative gaining traction in parts of the world that the energy transition is losing momentum. That it has become too expensive, too complicated, too politically contested to sustain. In boardrooms from Europe to North America, decarbonisation is slipping down the agenda.

In the Middle East, the opposite is happening.

This year, for the first time, Siemens published a dedicated Middle East edition of our Infrastructure Transition Monitor — a survey of 400 senior executives across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and Oman, supplemented by in-depth interviews with regional leaders and experts. We did this because what is happening in this region deserves its own conversation. The pace, the scale, and the intent are different here, and the data confirms it.

When we asked executives to describe current progress in transforming infrastructure to support the energy transition, the words chosen most often were “accelerating,” “effective,” and “following a clear vision.” That is a striking finding at a time when the transition has stalled or slowed in many other markets. Two-thirds of regional executives say the global energy transition needs to accelerate significantly compared with 57% globally.

But what makes the Middle East story truly distinctive is not just the ambition. It is the way that ambition is being organised and executed.

Decarbonisation as strategy, not compliance

Across the Middle East, decarbonising core operations has become the number-one organisational priority over the next three years. Globally, it ranks seventh. That gap is not marginal — it reflects a fundamentally different relationship between sustainability and competitiveness.

70% of organisations in the region have already set direct and indirect emissions targets, compared with 58% globally. And this is not happening in isolation. 65% of executives say businesses and governments are working closely together on energy-system policy — six points ahead of the global average. Governments here set large, visible strategic priorities — UAE Net Zero 2050, Saudi Vision 2030, Qatar National Vision 2030 — and industry moves quickly to align. That public-private coordination is accelerating execution in ways that other regions have struggled to replicate.

Building intelligence in from day one

The region is also making a deliberate choice about how it builds. Rather than constructing infrastructure and digitising it later, organisations here are embedding AI and digital intelligence into assets from the start. 68% of executives describe digitalisation as a critical enabler of the energy transition, and 62% expect AI to reshape how their organisations operate within three years.

This is not theoretical; it is already operational. Across the region, industrial AI is being used to optimise building performance, predict maintenance issues in municipal systems, and manage complex cooling loads in data centres, where it can reduce energy consumption by up to 30%.

57% of organisations are already using AI to help decarbonise their operations. The top three technologies executives expect to have the biggest positive impact on decarbonisation over the next three years are all AI-related.

In Saudi Arabia, we are helping Ceer Motors build smart factories for the next generation of domestic electric vehicles, and training over 100 Saudi engineers to run them. In the UAE, smart building technologies deployed across 60 government buildings are delivering up to 27% energy savings. In Qatar, more than 200 buildings are equipped with Siemens smart technology. These are not pilot projects. They are operational deployments delivering measurable results.

The grid: where ambition meets reality

None of this works, however, without a grid that can keep up.

Electricity demand across the Middle East and North Africa has tripled since 2000 and is projected to rise another 50% by 2035, driven heavily by cooling, desalination, and the rapid expansion of data centres. Power-grid limitations are cited by executives as the single biggest factor likely to slow the clean energy transition, and 62% say electrification is being held back by inadequate grid infrastructure.

The region knows this, and it is acting. Earlier this month, the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure inaugurated the Emirates Monitoring Center (EMC), the country’s first unified platform providing real-time visibility across the entire national power grid. For the first time, all four of the UAE’s electricity utilities are linked through a single monitoring and coordination system, covering ~48 gigawatts of installed generation capacity. Siemens delivered the core platform, achieving the world’s first fast-track deployment of the latest generation of our energy management system. The centre has been designed to grow alongside the country’s evolving energy landscape, supporting renewable integration, future cross-border interconnections, and AI-enabled predictive analysis.

This is what grid modernisation looks like in practice. Not just a bigger physical network, but a smarter, more coordinated electricity system that can balance renewable integration, industrial electrification, and the demands of a growing digital economy. It is why 64% of executives in our survey identify smart grids and grid software as crucial enablers of the transition.

A model worth studying

At Siemens, we have been a partner in this region for over 160 years. We are working hand-in-hand with governments, businesses, and communities to co-create the technologies and solutions that will drive sustainable progress, from smart cities and renewable energy to advanced manufacturing and intelligent grids.

What I see across the Middle East today is a region that refuses to slow down. Growth, decarbonisation, and resilience are not being treated as competing priorities; they are converging. And the combination of clear national visions, strong public-private collaboration, and a willingness to build intelligence into infrastructure from the start is producing results that the rest of the world should be paying close attention to.

The energy transition is not losing momentum everywhere. In this part of the world, support for acceleration remains strong.