The Scoop
AI data center builder DataVolt, linked to Saudi billionaire Mohammed Abunayyan, plans to complete a 100-megawatt facility in NEOM within 13 months, focused entirely on exporting compute capacity.
The data center will cost around $1 billion and has already broken ground. Rajit Nanda, DataVolt’s chief executive, said the timeline would make it the fastest for such a facility in the world. DataVolt plans to expand the capacity of the location to 360MW, he said in an interview.
Saudi Arabia aims to become a third global hub for AI, behind the US and China. The kingdom is pouring money into data centers and investing in tech companies that agree to move some of their operations to the country.
Developed in partnership with state-controlled HUMAIN, DataVolt’s data center will be the first in NEOM, in northwestern Saudi Arabia. It aims to use existing subsea cables and cheap renewable energy to supply computing power to international customers. The entire 1.5 gigawatt of data center capacity planned at NEOM will be sold abroad, Nanda said.
DataVolt signed an agreement with HUMAIN last week to partner on the NEOM projects. It’s also close to securing financing for the first facility, Nanda said.
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Nanda was previously chief financial officer and chief investment officer at power plant developer ACWA POWER, which is also backed by Abunayyan. While at ACWA, he was instrumental in helping to raise billions of dollars in debt to finance projects around the world, and said he plans to use that experience to fund DataVolt’s expansion. Riyadh-based DataVolt was founded in 2023 by Vision Invest, a firm established by two wealthy Saudi families, Abunayyan Holding and Al Muhaiadib Group.
DataVolt has committed to excluding Chinese firms from its supply chain. “My infrastructure will not use Chinese components, Chinese supply chain, and Chinese technology,” Nanda said.
The company does not expect delays in getting access to the semiconductors it needs for its data centers, despite tight US controls on exports of advanced American-made chips.
“We do not anticipate any challenges getting the chips we need,” Nanda said. The Saudi and US governments signed a strategic cooperation agreement related to AI last year, although details of the deal and how many chips the kingdom can buy were not announced. Nanda declined to elaborate on the terms of the US-Saudi deal.
Nanda said he doesn’t foresee any bubble in AI infrastructure investments - the data centers and chips where DataVolt is focused - and if there is an AI bubble it’s in the valuations of startups building new applications. “What I can say with confidence is the world is out of compute capacity for the next 10 years, and the kind of shortage that exists in compute has the ability to slow down the economy,” he said.
Notable
- Chinese tech companies are lining up to do business in the kingdom, as Saudi Arabia builds a reputation for being a gateway market to the Global South to a new generation of entrepreneurs, Semafor reported.