Saudi firm DataVolt has broken ground on its debut data center in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
The groundbreaking of the Tashkent IT Park Data Center took place on 2 May, the company announced this week.
Specifications of the new facility weren’t shared by the company, but the Uzbek Ministry of Digital Technologies said it will offer 10MW via a $150 million investment. Timelines for completion have not been disclosed.
DataVolt said the data center features a modular infrastructure design, allowing for scalable solutions able to accommodate various workloads “ranging from hundreds to a few thousands of teraflops.”
The groundbreaking ceremony featured Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud, Minister of Energy of Saudi Arabia in attendance.
“This is the first data center project for us in Uzbekistan, but it brings already strong aspects of innovation in sustainability using certified renewable energy from solar and wind fed into dedicated energy storage units and balanced by dedicated systems powered by hydrogen and other green fuels in order to secure round-the-clock green energy to our data center at the high level of reliability/availability required by the computing processes," said Rajit Nanda, DataVolt CEO. “This approach will be able to secure a cost-effective base for deployment of Artificial Intelligence computing processes in Uzbekistan as an absolute first in the region accelerating the development of an advanced IT industry in the country.”
Tashkent IT Park, located in the capital city, launched in 2019 as the country’s first IT park. It will cover almost seven hectares by 2024.
Founded last year, DataVolt is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vision Invest, a Saudi Arabian development and investment holding company focused on critical infrastructure. Company CEO Nanda was previously CFO of ACWA Power, a Saudi-based developer of power generation and desalinated water production plants. Much of DataVolt’s board and executive team have joined from ACWA, which is also owned by Vision Invest.
Plans for an Uzbek data center were announced last year.
At the Tashkent International Investment Forum earlier this month, DataVolt also signed an investment agreement with the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan for an investment program of up to 500MW of data centers across the country.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed at the same occasion with the Directorate of New Tashkent City for a data center in the new city.
The Uzbek Digital Ministry suggested the company is planning a 250MW campus on a 25-hectare site in New Tashkent and another 40MW site in Bukhara (located about 600km southwest of Tashkent) with potential to reach 250MW.
The company last year announced a partnership with Indian water technology firm AquaTech Systems to develop water-efficient data centers, but shared no details. It has also signed a deal with Indian engineering group Sterling and Wilson to develop data centers, but again no details were shared.
In September DataVolt revealed plans for a data center campus in Bangladesh, to be located outside the capital Dhaka. DataVolt also plans to invest $5 billion in developing data centers across Saudi Arabia.
