Media

Mada Media Books AED1.5 billion in Media contracts Across 683 Dubai Assets

Mada Media closed the first half of 2026 with AED1.5 billion in Media contracts, covering 683 advertising assets across Dubai. The company organises, develops and manages the emirate’s out-of-home advertising sector. Eighty local and regional advertising companies entered the tenders held during the period. Earlier company figures put first-quarter contract value at AED971.3 million, which places most of the half-year total in the opening three months.

Inside the asset list

Tendered inventory included 27 digital unipoles and 20 bridge banners. Six of those banners are digital, and 14 are static. Four static hoardings went to tender as well, along with displays on lighting poles and flags. Mada Media spread the sites across main districts and high-traffic roads, which widens the range of price points open to bidders. Advertisers pay for reach, and reach in Dubai OOH advertising follows the road network. A bridge banner on a commuter corridor carries a different value to a pole display on a side street, and the tender structure reflects that.

What the AED1.5 billion in Media contracts covers

Beyond site leases, the AED1.5 billion in Media contracts commits operators to converting a large share of static sites into screens. That shift moves the market further towards digital out-of-home advertising, the format now leading growth across the Gulf. Mordor Intelligence values the UAE digital out-of-home market at about 62.6 million dollars for 2026, with annual growth near 13 percent. PwC has estimated Dubai holds 73 percent of the country’s out-of-home market. Screens also change the sales model. Static sites sell time in weeks. Digital sites sell it in seconds, and inventory can be traded programmatically, which brings automated buying into a sector long run on fixed leases.

A tender written for smaller firms

The AED1.5 billion in Media contracts headline sits alongside a quieter piece of the programme. Mada Media ran a separate tender open only to emerging national companies registered with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for Small and Medium Enterprises Development, known as Dubai SME. Eighteen firms took part in that round, the first of its kind. The design is a governance choice rather than a commercial one. By ring-fencing a slice of inventory, the regulator decides that market share in a licensed sector should not settle only with the largest bidders.

Matar Al Tayer, Chairman of Mada Media, said, “The participation of 80 local and regional advertising companies in the tenders launched by the company is an indication of the expanding investor base and strong demand for the investment opportunities offered by the sector.”

Metro naming rights and the wider plan

Mada Media signed two Dubai Metro naming rights agreements for Red Line stations, one with a local brand and one, for the first time, with a global brand. Names and financial terms have not been released. Mansoor Al Sabahi, CEO of Mada Media, said the company is also extending Dubai Metro naming rights across the Green Line. He added, “Since the company was established, we have focused on building a regulatory and operational ecosystem based on transparency, streamlined procedures, and enhanced efficiency in the management and operation of advertising assets.”

Both the tender programme and the AED1.5 billion in Media contracts feed into the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 and the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan. Those plans treat street advertising as public infrastructure, licensed and priced by the state rather than left to open competition for space. Who controls the screens, and on what terms, is a policy question as much as a revenue one.

By Mariam Al-Yazidi
3 min read

Aviation

New Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) targets 260 million passengers

Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) targets 260 million passengers a year, and Dubai has now decided how most of them will move once they are inside the gates. Dubai Aviation City Corporation, a government entity, awarded the contract for a 50-kilometre automated people mover system to a consortium led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The Japanese group describes the network as the largest of its kind at any airport. Nine stations are planned, served by 165 driverless vehicles. Completion is scheduled for December 2031, a year ahead of the airport’s planned opening.

Who governs the award?

Dubai Aviation City Corporation sits inside the emirate’s government, which means the money and the accountability are public. Joining MHI are MHI Mobility Engineering Services and the Indian engineering group Larsen and Toubro. The Japanese partners lead design, procurement and testing of the vehicles and signalling, plus overall system integration. L&T takes the remaining subsystems, from design through on-site construction.

Neither the corporation nor MHI has published a price. L&T has classified its portion as a large order under its own reporting bands, a range of 2,500 crore to 5,000 crore rupees, or somewhere between 280 million and 560 million dollars. The precise figure stays undisclosed. Delivery is being implemented through Dubai Aviation Engineering Projects. MHI is not a stranger here, having built the Dubai Metro, which opened in 2011.

The first phase is set at 150 million passengers

Capacity is the reason. Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) targets 260 million passengers a year in its final form, alongside 12 million tonnes of cargo, across a site of about 70 square kilometres with five parallel runways. Reaching that figure would make it the world’s largest airport by design capacity. The first phase is set at 150 million passengers, and the higher number is a long-term ceiling rather than an opening-day promise.

Dubai International handled 95.2 million passengers in 2025, its busiest year on record, and has almost no room left to stretch. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum approved the new passenger terminal and a 128 billion dirham budget in April 2024, about 35 billion dollars. The Al Maktoum International Airport expansion has been running through a series of contract awards since.

A benchmark set well above Dallas

The 50-kilometre network would run more than six times the length of the current leader, the roughly 8-kilometre SkyLink at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, the most heavily travelled airport in the world, carries around 91 million passengers a year and moves them internally on its Plane Train. Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) targets 260 million passengers over time, close to three times Atlanta’s present traffic. Transfers become the binding constraint at that scale. MHI says the system is meant to cut journey times inside the Dubai World Central airport, improve convenience and keep operations efficient as volumes climb.

Technology decisions held open

Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, has said the second phase is being designed around new technology and around convenience for travellers. He has spoken of building an airport experience like none other, and has indicated some equipment choices will be taken late in the programme, so newer systems can still be adopted. Keeping options open guards against obsolescence. It also loads risk onto the schedule, and on a public project of this size the timetable is the one measure outsiders can check without access to the books. The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries contract fixes one of the larger pieces early. Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) targets 260 million passengers, and the people mover decides whether an airport of that size works from the inside.

By Mariam Al-Yazidi
3 min read

NVIDIA

Nvidia’s $105 billion OpenAI deal puts Ohio compute under fresh scrutiny

The $105 billion OpenAI deal disclosed in an Nvidia securities filing on Monday commits the chipmaker to standing behind a data center it will neither own nor operate. Credit from Nvidia covers an initial 4.25 gigawatts of computing capacity, with an option on a further 3.75 gigawatts. SB Energy will build and manage the site at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, under a 20-year lease to OpenAI. Capacity is expected to come online in phases from 2028.

Who carries the risk in the $105 billion OpenAI deal?

Three parties sit at different points on the risk ladder. Nvidia supplies the compute and, according to the company, backs defined portions of lease and power payments. OpenAI holds the tenancy and said it will begin paying only as capacity becomes available for lease. SB Energy, backed by SoftBank, owns the asset. Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, said the company is securing long-lived infrastructure so OpenAI can deploy AI factories that can be upgraded with each new chip generation.

Ownership ties run through the structure. OpenAI holds a stake in SB Energy, and Sam Altman invested in the developer at an early stage. Nvidia will now place $1.5 billion into the company as well, deepening a relationship it also underwrites.

A financing model under scrutiny

The Nvidia OpenAI Ohio data center follows a run of financing moves that have drawn questions about AI circular financing, where a supplier funds the customers who then buy its products. Huang rejected that reading, writing that OpenAI will pay the lease. Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said the real test is whether the investments deliver decent returns to everyone putting up cash, a judgement that can only be made later.

Earlier reporting by CNBC put the talks at a backstop of up to $250 billion for a 10-gigawatt project at the same location. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the figure would be trimmed to less than $120 billion. What was filed came in below both numbers. Days before, Nvidia joined six large asset managers on platforms designed to deploy $500 billion of third-party capital into data center projects.

Power, jobs and the local ledger

The $105 billion OpenAI deal also reshapes the energy question in southern Ohio. SB Energy and SoftBank will build power sources supporting 10 gigawatts and invest at least $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure. OpenAI has committed $40 million toward local priorities. The company said the SB Energy data center will support 35,000 construction jobs through 2032 and 2,500 long-term positions.

Scale is the reason the accounting matters. One gigawatt is roughly enough electricity for 750,000 American homes. Nvidia estimates each generation of systems deployed at the campus could involve about 1.5 million GPUs and $150 billion to $200 billion in revenue. Communities near new load face the practical question of who absorbs the cost of getting power to the site.

What the arrangement secures

For Nvidia, the lease guarantee buys certainty in a market where land and interconnection have become the scarce inputs. For OpenAI, it converts a balance sheet constraint into a tenancy. Huang has acknowledged that frontier labs are growing faster than their balance sheets and credit profiles can support. That admission sits at the heart of the structure.

Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday that compute is a fundamental resource for the industry. He described it as the new oil of the AI age, a limited input rather than an abundant one. Who ultimately pays for it remains an open question.

By Mariam Al-Yazidi
3 min read

Mariam Al-Yazidi