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GCC’s top five data centre projects

26 February 2025

 

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Over the past few weeks, tech companies and data centre operators have announced multibillion-dollars’ worth of planned investments in data centre projects and related digital infrastructure.

Companies such as Riyadh-based DataVolt, Ezditek and Al-Moammer Information Systems and Dubai-headquartered Gulf Data Hub have signed agreements to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled data centre facilities, primarily in Saudi Arabia.

Telecom companies such as Qatar’s Ooredoo, Saudi Arabia’s STC and the UAE’s Du and E& are continuing the expansion of their data centre facilities, while firms such as the UAE’s Khazna Data Centres plan to expand their capacity at home and abroad.

The scale of data centre projects coming to the market over the next few years or months is unprecedented.

Between 2020 and 2024, the GCC states awarded an average of $1.2bn of data centre construction contracts annually, which is the equivalent of the cost of just one thermal power plant with roughly 1GW of capacity.

The GCC region’s average data centre contract award value over this five-year window equated to a mere 0.48% of total contracts awarded in 2024, a record year, of $264bn. 

This is expected to change with the announcement of new projects or ongoing schemes that aim to meet the region’s growing demand for cloud services and AI-based applications.

Related read: Region poised for huge investment in data centres

According to the latest available data from regional projects tracker MEED Projects, close to $7bn-worth of data centre projects are under construction, while some $13bn are in the pre-execution phase.

Here, MEED presents a summary of the top five projects that are planned or under execution.

DataVolt and Neom data centre project phase 1

Saudi gigaproject developer Neom and Saudi Arabia-based DataVolt, a developer, investor and operator of data centres, signed an agreement in January to develop a major data centre infrastructure in Oxagon, Neom’s industrial cluster.

Funded by an investment of about $5bn, the 1.5GW first phase of the project is expected to be operational by 2028. Neom expects the facility to be entirely powered by renewable energy, providing a fully integrated, end-to-end data centre solution.

The project will utilise advanced cooling technologies and is designed to operate at net-zero carbon emissions, addressing the global challenges of power availability and the carbon footprint posed by data centres.

Amazon Web Services Saudi Arabia Zone

In March 2024, US-headquartered Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched a plan for a new AWS Region in Saudi Arabia in 2026 as part of its long-term commitment to invest more than $5.3bn in the kingdom.

The planned AWS Region in Saudi Arabia will comprise three availability zones, or a data centre infrastructure in separate and distinct locations “far enough from each other to support customers’ business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications”.

Each availability zone has independent power, cooling and physical security and is connected “through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks”. The new AWS Region aims to provide options for various companies and organisations to run their applications and serve end users from data centres located in Saudi Arabia, “ensuring that customers who want to keep their content in-country can do so”.

Khazna 100MW data centre in Ajman

London-headquartered construction firm Laing O’Rourke has started construction on a new data centre in Ajman, UAE, which is being developed by UAE-based data centre and cloud services provider Khazna Data Centres.

The multibillion-dirham project will be the UAE’s largest AI-enhanced data centre, with an expected capacity of 100MW. Expected to be completed next year, the planned Tier 3 data centre project will cover an area of ​​100,000 square metres and will include 20 data halls, each with a capacity of 5MW.

Desert Dragon

Riyadh-headquartered data centre developer ICS Arabia is expected to start construction works imminently on the first of three data centres it plans to develop in Saudi Arabia. The cluster’s first data centre, Desert Dragon, is located in Al-Kharj, southeast of the capital Riyadh.

The 65MW data centre aims to achieve a Tier 3-level certification. ICS Arabia said in September last year, when it announced breaking ground on the projects, that the first data centre was expected to become operational in 2026.

The project’s second phase, a 50MW data centre in Jeddah, is expected to begin construction this February, with a target operations date in the fourth quarter of 2026. The project’s third phase will encompass 72MW facilities in Dammam and Neom. Construction is expected to commence in September. 

The firm is developing the project in a joint venture with Shanghai-based Lumaotong Group and China Mobile International. The joint venture plans to invest a total of $1.9bn in the projects.

Ezditek 64MW Riyadh data centre

Ezdihar Advanced Company for Information Technology (EzdiTek) is undertaking the construction of a 64MW data centre project in Riyadh’s Al-Jenadriyah Technical Zone, Saudi Arabia.

The planned cloud-based data centre facility will have a capacity of 64MW, requiring an investment of around AED2.64bn. The land allocated for Ezditek’s data centre project is 55,000 square metres.

Related read: Kent acquires Sudlows Consulting

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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