Nobody can reasonably accuse Saudi Arabia of lacking ambition. Along with all the other projects it has going on at the moment, the kingdom has inked a deal with data center firm DataVolt to build what it calls the region's first "truly sustainable" AI hub.
The AI facility is expected to be operational by 2028 and is planned for Neom's Oxagon district, which is a huge partially floating industrial port city envisioned as the powerhouse of the ongoing Saudi Arabian transformation from an oil-based economy into a tourism and innovation center. A desalination plant, a green hydrogen plant, and an oceanographic research center are all planned for the district too.
Details are still light on the 1.5-gigawatt data center at this early stage, but we do know that the initial investment is US$5 billion and that the ambition is for it to run on renewables like wind and solar. However, considering the huge amount of energy it'll require and without finer details, we'd recommend taking such plans with a pinch of salt for now.
"As part of the agreement, Oxagon will lease DataVolt the land for the development of the facility and provide the sustainable data center operator with infrastructure support," says the press release. "The ambition is for the facility to be entirely powered by renewable energy, providing a fully integrated, end-to-end data center solution. The project will utilize advanced cooling technologies and is designed to operate at net zero, addressing the global challenges of power availability and the carbon footprint posed by data centers."
Alongside its general ambition to become a "digital powerhouse" in the region, authorities have previously mentioned the use of artificial intelligence technologies to keep track of every aspect of the daily lives of those within in its futuristic megacity, the Line.
It all sounds pretty dystopian but Saudi authorities aim to have 300,000 people living in the Line by 2030 and the plan is for this to eventually rise to 9 million. As such, the logistical challenge of keeping track of water requirements, power usage, garbage disposal and all the other things that make a city tick over is going to be immense – so leveraging monitoring technologies and AI to help automate the management of such things makes a lot of sense.
That's about all we know for the moment, but this is a colossal architecture, engineering and technology project with lots of massive pieces to fit together. We've already seen the completion of the Sindalah island getaway, but there are breathtaking hotels, skyscrapers, bridges, marinas and more to come. We'll keep you posted.
Source: Neom