The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) has laid the foundation stone for a 480 MW government data center in Riyadh. The project named Hexagon will be a Tier IV facility built over a total area of 30 million square feet.
SDAIA is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)’s competent authority concerned with data and AI including big data. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), SDAIA said, “As part of the support of His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister, and Chairman of SDAIA’s Board of Directors, the foundation stone is laid for SDAIA’s Hexagon Data Center, the world’s largest government data center, designed to Tier IV, the highest global standard for data centers.”
According to local media reports, the foundation laying ceremony was attended by senior officials from various government entities who were received at the venue by President of SDAIA Dr Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi, and other SDAIA officials. Gulf News reported that the project is estimated to be worth US$ 2.7 billion (Dh 9.9 billion).
In a series of posts on LinkedIn, SDAIA also revealed that Hexagon will host over 290 government systems, and that the project had received a series of international certifications pertaining to operational reliability (Tier IV certified by Uptime Institute with availability up to 99.99 percent), operational engineering (TIA 942), infrastructure protection (ISO/IEC 22237) and energy efficiency (LEED Gold). It also says that Hexagon aims to save SAR 30 million via reduced energy consumption, and also cut down carbon emissions by 30,000 tonnes.
