Via Carrington Malin in middleeastainews.com: Microsoft has reached a major milestone in Saudi Arabia with the completion of construction for three data centres and Azure Availability Zones in the Eastern Province. The US software giant expects the new Saudi data centre region to be operational in 2026. Microsoft initially announced plans for a new Microsoft Data Centre and Azure cloud region in Saudi Arabia during LEAP 2023, to offer enterprise-grade reliability and performance combined with customer privacy, data residency, and high-speed latency standards. The move aligns with Microsoft’s $60 billion global investment in AI and cloud infrastructure for 2024. The new Azure cloud region in Saudi Arabia is critical for Microsoft both in terms of its regional and global goals. There is now a global race to build out data centre infrastructure in order to support to growing demand for AI compute and the vast, fast growing amounts of data that support it.
