Saudi Arabia’s Data Center Investment Opportunity

Saudi Arabia is seeing rapid growth in data center capacity and is leading the growth the GCC region, with development driven more by policy direction and capital concentration. Capacity is anchored in Riyadh and the Eastern Province, reflecting government workloads, industrial demand and cloud adoption. Hyperscaler regions and AI focused compute campuses are acting as demand magnets, pushing higher density requirements and colocated ecosystems. Structural economics remain supportive, with low power tariffs, ample generation headroom and competitively priced land, enabling scale. Regulation reinforces local hosting, converting demand intent into committed capacity. The government has set ambitious targets of achieving IT capacity of 1.5 GW by 2030. However, execution remains sensitive to availability of fresh water for cooling, talent availability, execution speed & supply chain, and geopolitics.