The vast telecommunications company Saudi Telecom Co (STC) has announced plans to invest $400 million in expanding its data centre rollout.
Its plans are to build the largest cloud-enabled data centre in the Middle East region in the process, making the country a centre for digitisation.
According to the Data Centre Dynamics website, STC has said it is implementing the third phase of its data-centre programme with a facility that has an allocated land area of more than 180,000 square metres.
The first phase was in 2019. The second phase is in the final commissioning stage. The overall programme involves16 data centres in six cities.
The Saudi Press Agency says that the company plans to build a total of 125MW of capacity across more than 180,000 square metres of land in the expansion project.
STC switched on two Tier III data centres in Jeddah and Al-Madina at the start of this year. Plans are for a third in Riyadh to come online at an unspecified date.
Data centre activity is certainly ramping up in the kingdom. In June local IT firm Al Moammar Information Systems (MIS) and financial services provider Saudi Fransi Capital announced plans to establish a new fund to build data centres across Saudi Arabia.
