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RIYADH: Dubai’s real estate market surged in the second quarter, with sales transactions climbing 44.5 percent year on year to 153.7 billion dirhams ($41.85 billion), a new report showed. 

According to real estate advisory firm JLL, the performance highlights the resilience of the wider UAE property sector, where activity was dominated by the off-plan market and supported by strong launches in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi. 

The growth aligns with a broader trend across the Gulf Cooperation Council, where property values and sales are rising in residential, commercial, and hospitality segments, fueled by economic diversification efforts. 

In August, Kuwait Financial Center, also known as Markaz, said the GCC property market is set to extend its growth momentum into the second half of the year, supported by lower interest rates, government investment, and resilient investor demand. 

“Dubai’s sales market is expected to maintain strong sales momentum despite anticipated price growth moderation,” JLL said.  

It added: “This stabilization reflects an approaching supply-demand equilibrium, fostering a more sustainable pricing environment. The moderation will initially impact outdated inventory in secondary locations with the continual delivery of newer supply.” 

In Dubai, residential demand continued to expand in the second quarter, with total sales transactions rising 22.8 percent year on year, driven largely by the off-plan segment. 

An off-plan property is a unit purchased in advance of its completion, typically before construction begins, often at a discount and with a small deposit requirement. 

The secondary market also performed strongly, posting a 17.1 percent annual increase, underscoring sustained demand across both segments. 

JLL said Dubai’s rental market recorded substantial growth across both new contracts and renewals, indicating strong demand from new and existing tenants alike. 

Compared with the second quarter of 2024, new contracts rose 14.3 percent in the same period this year, while renewals increased 9.9 percent. 

“Although the volume of new contracts showed improvement compared to the prior year, renewals maintained dominance with a 63 percent majority share of total contracts, with new agreements comprising the balance,” said JLL.  

In the second quarter, apartment prices in Dubai increased 13.3 percent year on year to 1,769 dirhams per sq. feet., while villa prices rose 16 percent to 2,200 dirhams per sq. feet. 

On an annual basis, apartment rental rates in Dubai increased 7.2 percent, while villa rents rose 5.3 percent. 

“Dubai’s rental market is transitioning toward equilibrium, evidenced by decelerating growth rates in the second quarter, which signals a shift to more sustainable long-term market dynamics despite potential near-term yield adjustments for investors and landlords,” said JLL.  

Dubai’s residential inventory reached about 869,000 units in the second quarter, with 12,000 delivered between April and June. 

A further 22,000 units are scheduled for completion in the second half of the year, mainly in Dubailand, Jumeirah Village, and Mohammed Bin Rashid City, with apartments making up roughly 70 percent of the upcoming supply.

Abu Dhabi market

In Abu Dhabi, average sales prices rose 12.1 percent year on year in the second quarter, while transaction volumes increased 9.1 percent. Growth was supported by a 32.6 percent jump in secondary sales, although off-plan deals continued to dominate overall activity. 

“Rising consumer interest in luxury living experiences is expected to drive greater demand for Abu Dhabi’s branded residential segment. Investors benefit from these branded properties as they generally sell at higher price points than similar non-branded options, potentially yielding higher investment returns and maintaining their value more effectively,” said JLL.  

Average apartment and villa sales prices in Abu Dhabi rose 14.4 percent and 11.1 percent, respectively, in the year to the second quarter of 2025. 

In the capital, rental rates for apartments and villas increased 13.9 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, by the end of the quarter. 

Abu Dhabi added about 3,400 residential units in the second quarter, bringing total housing stock to around 292,000 units. Another 10,400 units are scheduled for completion by year-end. 

NASHVILLE: The CEO of a leading tech company has played down concerns over the environmental impact of data centers and said that in areas such as the Gulf there were green options for cooling.

Data centers generate a vast amount of heat and as such need to be continuously cooled.

It is already well documented that data centers are considered to negatively affect the environment through an enormous consumption of electricity in the cooling process, which in turn leads to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

The cooling process consumes a significant amount of water, which critics believe can strain local resources — especially in countries such as the UAE and ����ֱ�� where there are plans to create world leading data facilities. 

Likewise, the rise of artificial intelligence is further increasing these demands for energy, water, and infrastructure. 

But speaking on the sidelines of the Autodesk AU 2025: The Design & Make Conference the tech company’s president and CEO, Andrew Anagnost, told Arab News that he believed the benefits far outweighed any long-term impact.

And while acknowledging there was an impact, Anagnost added: “But it’s trivial relative to all the other usage out there in the world. And at the same time we’re able to optimize the usage of these tools to have less need for the computing process.”

According to a report published by the UN Environment Programme, on June 12, internet users worldwide have more than doubled while global internet traffic has expanded to 5.54 billion people worldwide.

The report also noted that the International Energy Agency estimated the data centers would “drive more than 20 percent of the growth in electricity demand between and 2030.”

The report went on to explain that many data centers also use significant volumes of water.

“According to the World Economic Forum, a one-megawatt data center can consume up to 25.5 million liters of water each year only for cooling, comparable to the daily water use of around 300,000 people,” the report added.

����ֱ�� is already working on the creation of Humain, the Kingdom’s new AI company, with the construction of its first data centers in the Kingdom, which are expected to come online in early 2026.

The centers will be in Riyadh and Dammam, in the Eastern Province, and are expected to launch in the second quarter, each with an initial capacity of up to 100 megawatts.

Depending where you look, data centers can use anything from one megawatt to several hundreds — and in the same type of search up to 300 Saudi homes will use a single megawatt.

But Anagnost said the power used by these centers did not have to be taken from a country’s national grid and as such could be generated on a hyperlocal basis by methods such as nuclear or solar.

“I’m much more worried about other things such as carbon emissions, that are associated with other types of mechanisms and I am not worried about data centers and AI, because everybody’s already building these things to be self-sustaining and use power sources that are actually pretty green in terms of carbon emissions.”

He said that while water consumption was initially comparatively large, once circulated, the center’s water would be contained within and reused once treated and cooled.

The ease of cooling the water used to maintain a suitable temperature in data centers is dependent on differing factors such as the external temperature — in a cold a country the process can be eased by something as straightforward as leaving the door open to allow a flow of cooler air.

Anagnost said the planning in the design of data centers needed to be flexible.

Various factors create “absolutely different ways of passive and active cooling for centers … in the desert you have a lot more sun.”

And that sunlight he said, could be used to generate solar energy, which in turn could be used to power cooling systems.

Whatever the methods used for cooling, the collection of data in centers is going to continue as more processes become digitized.

The engineering and industry sectors waste 95 percent of all data collected.

The introduction of AI is gradually leading to more efficient production methods which can make these sectors and many others more cost effective and less wasteful, with the materials used and the data collected.