Saudi Arabia bets on exporting computing, AI to the world: DataVolt

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia is positioning itself to become one of the world’s largest exporters of computing power within eight to 10 years as companies such as DataVolt invest in large-scale data centre and AI infrastructure. DataVolt, headquartered in Riyadh with offices in Dubai and California and part of Saudi Vision Invest Group, says its expansion rests on three pillars — energy, connectivity and geography — and is developing projects including a 1.5-gigawatt facility in Oxagon inside NEOM and roughly 60 megawatts of capacity already underway across Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

“The goal goes beyond meeting domestic market needs and is to transform Saudi Arabia into ‘computing factories for the world,’” said Rajit Nanda, CEO of DataVolt.

DataVolt describes itself less as a traditional data centre operator and more as an energy company that entered the sector from the opposite direction: “data” for intelligence and “volt” for energy, Nanda said. He highlighted cheap green power in the Kingdom — roughly 2 cents per kilowatt-hour from large-scale renewable projects — which he estimates is about 30 to 40 percent lower than comparable costs in China. That energy advantage underpins the firm’s ability to offer highly competitive pricing for compute-intensive workloads such as AI training.

• Current and planned capacity: Saudi Arabia today has about 300 MW of data centre capacity, projected to rise to roughly 800 MW by 2030–2031; DataVolt’s Oxagon project targets 1.5 GW, and the company has about 60 MW in projects (48 MW in Saudi sites, 12 MW in Tashkent).
• Investment and sales: the initial 60 MW programme involves nearly $1 billion of investment and, Nanda said, “virtually all the capacity has already been sold,” with only a few megawatts remaining.
• Customer mix: roughly 70 percent of DataVolt’s Saudi capacity is allocated to AI workloads; Uzbekistan splits usage about evenly between AI and cloud computing.
• Connectivity: Saudi Arabia currently hosts 17 subsea cables, a figure expected to grow to 24 within two years, complemented by a developing terrestrial fibre network.
• Geographic reach: from Saudi Arabia roughly half the world’s population is reachable within 120 milliseconds — including about 1.4 billion people in Africa, 2 billion in South and Southeast Asia, 450 million in Europe and another 350 million via Europe into the US.

DataVolt is also pushing technological and financing frontiers. It is among the first operators in the Gulf and Central Asia to deploy liquid cooling at scale for high-density AI racks. Its Tashkent project closed financing through a consortium of European development finance institutions — the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Proparco of France, Germany’s DEG and the OPEC Fund for International Development — a structure Nanda described as “among the first such experiences globally” for a digital asset.

On renewable integration, the Tashkent centre relies on round-the-clock green supply via coordinated solar-by-day and wind-by-night arrangements with the grid, demonstrating alternatives to conventional on-grid baseload in emerging markets. Talent development is also a priority: DataVolt’s Energy and Water Academy runs a three-year data centre operator programme with gender-balanced intakes. The firm offered 100 places for a data and AI programme and expected about 400 applications — it received 16,500 in four days. In Uzbekistan DataVolt has committed to ensuring all data centre operators are Uzbek citizens by 2029.

Looking ahead, DataVolt expects construction at Oxagon to begin in about 12 weeks, with the first phase delivering “hundreds of megawatts” of capacity. Backed by low-cost renewables, expanding subsea connectivity and strategic geography, the company projects Saudi Arabia can replicate its oil-exporter scale in computing exports within a decade.