The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that Saudi Arabia has joined the global competition to create a large-scale data infrastructure with Hexagon Data Center in Riyadh, the largest government data center in the world, which is termed as Tier IV.
The Hexagon Data Center will be intended to serve the growth areas of the kingdom by means of innovative digital technologies, where data is becoming one of the key sources of economic and social changes.
SPA reported that the project corresponds to the plan of the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) and the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.
SPA reported that the kingdom considers the creation of large-scale digital infrastructure as a strategic requirement to guarantee the technical sovereignty of data and diversify non-oil sources of revenue.
Therefore, Saudi Arabia is already at the top of the world in a number of indicators, such as the government strategy of the Global AI Index. Data centres have come a long way since they were invented in the 1950s in the form of climate-controlled facilities that hosted the first supercomputers.
Their strategic significance increased as the internet gained momentum in the late 1990s and cloud computing services were launched in 2006.
Data centres were already an economic priority of governments worldwide by 2020, and this tendency was enhanced by the arrival of generative artificial intelligence, which demands enormous processing power.
Since its establishment in 2019, SDAIA has been the national agenda of Saudi Arabia in relation to data and AI, acting as the official regulator, developer, and user of data and artificial intelligence.
SPA reported that the kingdom has become a major player in the world digital economy and the main attraction of international technology firms in the Middle East in less than six years.
SDAIA has also come up with a broad legislative and regulatory framework, such as the Personal Data Protection Law, and the additional regulations and standards of generative AI, the AI Adoption Framework, and the regulations of the National Register of Controllers.
The measures should enhance confidence in the digital ecosystem of Saudi Arabia and contribute to sustainable development.
The Hexagon Data Center will become the basis of a nationwide network of data centers in the expansion plan of SDAIA, so that the increasing demand of the national digital infrastructure is provided with the possibility of high availability of systems based on international standards.
The facility complies with the standards of the US Green Building Council LEED Gold and integrates the latest energy efficiency and smart cooling systems, such as direct liquid cooling and hybrid systems, to maintain low power usage effectiveness.
It also incorporates renewable energy sources, which helps in the classification of this as one of the largest green data centres in the world. The Hexagon Data Center has a capacity of 480 megawatts with a size of over 30 million square feet.
It has been globally accredited as per the TIA 942 standard and Tier IV certified as the highest international standard of data centre reliability, guaranteeing 99.995 percent operational availability.
It has also been awarded ISO IEC 22237 certification, which addresses infrastructure resilience and protection against technical and environmental risks.
SPA stated that the SDAIA approximates that the data centre strategy of the kingdom will produce a total local economic impact of over SAR10bn ($2.67 billion), annual savings of over SAR1.8 billion, but also contribute to non-oil economic growth and enhance digital government services to citizens and residents.
