Saudi Arabia has entered the global competition for large-scale data infrastructure with the launch of the Hexagon Data Center in Riyadh, a 480-megawatt facility billed by officials as the world’s largest government-owned data center and certified at Tier IV reliability. The project is a core component of the Kingdom’s digital strategy under Vision 2030 and the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), aimed at strengthening technical sovereignty, expanding non-oil economic capabilities, and attracting advanced technology industries.
Unveiled on January 2, the Hexagon Data Center is intended to support data-intensive applications across government and strategic sectors, including artificial intelligence, cloud computing and national digital services. SDAIA described the center as a foundational asset in Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s goal for Saudi Arabia to become a global hub for advanced technologies.
With more than 30 million square feet of space, the facility uses direct liquid cooling, hybrid cooling and renewable energy to lower power usage effectiveness, and is designed to meet U.S. Green Building Council LEED Gold sustainability standards. Officials say the center sets a benchmark for a planned domestic network of future data centers to meet surging national demand for compute.
The Hexagon facility has secured notable international accreditations, including TIA-942, ISO/IEC 22237 and Tier IV certification, the highest rating for fault tolerance with 99.995% uptime. SDAIA expects the country’s data center expansion strategy to generate more than SAR 10 billion in cumulative economic impact and annual savings of over SAR 1.8 billion, alongside broader quality-of-life improvements through more mature digital public services.
Since its establishment in 2019, SDAIA has become the national authority on data, AI and regulation, issuing the Personal Data Protection Law, standards for generative AI and other frameworks to support a trusted digital ecosystem. Officials argue that advanced compute is now central to both economic competition and national security, with data centers enabling generative AI and cloud workloads that have reshaped global industrial priorities.
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