Hexagon Riyadh: 480MW AI-Ready Hyperscale Data Center

Status: Groundbreaking / Active Construction   |   Location: Saudi Arabia, Riyadh

Project Overview

The Hexagon Riyadh Hyperscale Campus represents a pivotal moment in the digital transformation of Saudi Arabia. Grounded in February 2026, this facility is a cornerstone of the Kingdom's "Saudi Vision 2030" and the National Strategy for Data and AI. Spanning over 30 million square feet in the northern expansion zone of Riyadh, Hexagon is not merely a colocation site; it is a high-density "AI Factory" engineered to host the next generation of sovereign AI models for the Middle East.

With a total power capacity of 480 MW, the campus is one of the largest infrastructure developments globally as of early 2026. The project is led by Hexagon Infrastructure, a specialized vehicle backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), reflecting the government's direct involvement in securing digital sovereignty. The choice of Riyadh is strategic, leveraging the city's massive energy infrastructure and its role as the central hub for the GCC's growing tech sector.

A defining characteristic of the Hexagon campus is its radical approach to thermal management. In an environment where ambient temperatures frequently exceed 45°C, traditional air cooling is insufficient for the high-density compute required by modern GPU clusters. Hexagon has integrated a massive direct-to-chip liquid cooling architecture, which allows for rack densities exceeding 50kW. This is paired with an advanced evaporative secondary system designed to minimize water consumption, targeting a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.35—a benchmark performance for a desert climate.

Connectivity for the campus is anchored by the Kingdom's national carriers, including stc and Mobily, providing ultra-low latency links to the newly launched Saudi Arabian Internet Exchange (SAIE). This ensures that the massive datasets generated by the Kingdom’s giga-projects (like NEOM and The Line) can be processed and inferred in real-time. The facility is also "Green Hydrogen Ready," with plans to integrate modular hydrogen fuel cells as part of a long-term goal to reach net-zero operational status by 2040.

Economically, Hexagon Riyadh is expected to be a massive job creator, requiring over 4,000 construction workers during its three-year build-out and establishing a permanent workforce of over 500 AI and facility engineers. By providing the compute capacity necessary for Arabic LLM training and regional cloud scaling, the Hexagon project effectively positions Riyadh as the "Silicon Oasis" of the Middle East, rivaling established global hubs in both scale and technological sophistication.

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