Saudi Arabia to invest $5b in AI data centre

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi company will invest $5 billion to build an artificial intelligence data centre in the futuristic city of NEOM, state media reported.

The agreement, signed between DataVolt and NEOM, would fund the creation of a fully sustainable AI data centre with a 1.5 gigawatt capacity, the official SPA news agency said.

The project will be located in Oxagon, an industrial city within NEOM, which the kingdom aims to transform into the world's largest floating industrial complex.

The NEOM project, unveiled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, features a mirrored building dubbed The Line stretching 170 kilometres (105 miles) across the desert from the Gulf of Aqaba.

When announcing The Line in 2022, Prince Mohammed said it would house more than one million residents by 2030 and nine million by 2045.

But developers have since revised those projections to 300,000 residents by the end of the decade, according to Bloomberg.

In late October, Saudi Arabia announced the opening of Sindalah, a luxury resort on the Red Sea, marking NEOM's first operational project.

NEOM is part of the broader "Vision 2030" initiative, aimed at ensuring the future development of the world's largest oil exporter in a post-oil world.