Status: Under Construction (Phased Rollout) | Location: Multi-Region: Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, and NEOM, Saudi Arabia
The Desert Dragon Data Centers project, developed by ICS Arabia, is a landmark initiative designed to deliver a high-resilience, multi-region digital backbone across Saudi Arabia. This project is directly aligned with the Kingdom's Vision 2030 goals of economic diversification and digital transformation, aiming to establish Saudi Arabia as the central digital hub connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa. The development is ambitious, spanning four strategic locations: Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, and NEOM. This distribution ensures geographical redundancy and allows for sovereign cloud operations across the key economic and demographic centers of the country. The total capacity planned across these sites is a substantial 187 MW, representing one of the largest single contractor-led data center rollouts in the region. A key differentiator for this project is its focus on high resilience and next-generation cooling tailored for the demanding Saudi climate. The facilities are designed to meet stringent Tier III and Tier IV standards, with a commitment to maintaining high uptime even in ambient temperatures exceeding $50^{\circ} \text{C}$. The design incorporates innovative cooling solutions, including a dedicated Immersive Cooling Building for high-density, AI-focused racks, which uses dielectric fluid to reduce energy consumption by up to 45% compared to traditional air cooling. Financially, the project represents a significant investment, with a total capital expenditure of nearly $2 billion USD. The phased rollout, starting in 2026, ensures capacity comes online rapidly to meet the massive demand from hyperscale cloud providers and large enterprises requiring in-country data residency. By building a network of interconnected, high-specification facilities, Desert Dragon is helping to create the foundational infrastructure needed to power Saudi Arabia's AI and smart-city future.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Project Name | Desert Dragon Data Center Infrastructure |
| Location | Multi-Region: Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, and NEOM, Saudi Arabia |
| Status | Under Construction (Phased Rollout) |
| Project Type | Hyperscale Colocation (Wholesale/Retail) / Sovereign Cloud Infrastructure |
| Commissioning | 🔒 Subscriber Intelligence |
| Total IT Load | 🔒 Subscriber Intelligence |
| Total Capacity | 🔒 Subscriber Intelligence |
| Tier Level | 🔒 Subscriber Intelligence |
| Header | Details |
|---|---|
| City Name | Riyadh |
| Population | 7 to over 9 million |
| Urban Agglomeration | 7.9 to 9 million |
| Economic Profile | 🔒 Detailed city intelligence available to subscribers |
Developer, operator, infrastructure partners, contractors and engineering.
Power capacity, redundancy, cooling, connectivity, PUE and energy mix.
Announcement, construction start, go-live and full buildout.
Total project investment and funding intelligence.
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