Facility will offer 10MW of capacity
ICS Arabia and XDS will construct two immersion-cooled data centers in Saudi Arabia.
A data center operator and manufacturer based in Saudi Arabia, ICS has struck a deal with XDS, which is based in the UK and the UAE and specializes in cooling.
The two companies will deliver a 10MW data center in Riyadh, the country’s capital.
Desert Dragon Data Centers, which is a subsidiary of ICS, will design and construct the facility before handing it over to XDS by June 2026. XDS will operate the facility for 15 years.
Arabia Abdullah Ayed Al Mazny, general manager of ICS, said: “Our partnership with XDS reflects our shared vision to deliver cutting-edge data center capabilities in the kingdom.”
CEO of XDS, Ghufran Hamid, said: “We are pioneering the inevitable switch from air-cooled to liquid immersion. Those companies who are still investing in just air-cooled will become the Blockbuster of the data center market.”
Founded in 2003, ICS Arabia has several data center and digital infrastructure projects in the country, including turnkey projects at local hospitals and the design-build for the emergency response command centers.
XDS does not currently operate a data center. According to the company’s website, it has a focus on three geographical areas: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has seen an influx of investment following President Donald Trump’s visit.
Humain, the AI-focused subsidiary of the country’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), said that it would buy 18,000 Nvidia GB300 chips with "several hundred thousand" more on the way, that it was partnering with AWS for a $5bn 'AI Zone,' signed a deal with AMD for 500MW of compute, and deployed Groq chips for inference. It also signed MoUs with Qualcomm and Cisco.
Digital transformation is a crucial part of Vision 2030, which is the country’s plan to diversify its economy away from a reliance on oil revenues.
