Today, Oracle announced the opening of its second public cloud region in Saudi Arabia as part of its ongoing efforts to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing services.
The new cloud region in Riyadh will help public and private sector companies move all types of workloads to Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), enabling them to access a wide range of cloud services to modernize their applications and innovate with data, analytics, and artificial intelligence.
Center3 is the hosting partner for the new Oracle Cloud region in Riyadh.
As part of Oracle’s distributed cloud strategy and the company’s $1.5 billion investment to expand cloud infrastructure capabilities in the Kingdom, the new region will help enhance the AI economy in the Kingdom, which is expected to reach $135.2 billion by 2030.
The Oracle Cloud region in Riyadh joins the existing Oracle Cloud region in Jeddah and the planned Oracle Cloud region in NEOM, strengthening the company’s presence in Saudi Arabia.
Oracle is the only cloud computing company capable of offering AI-powered services with a comprehensive suite of over 100 cloud services in dedicated, public, and hybrid cloud environments worldwide.
These services include the Oracle Autonomous Database, the HeatWave MySQL Database, the Kubernetes container runtime, VMware on Oracle Cloud, Oracle’s Generative AI services for cloud infrastructure, AI infrastructure, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) superclusters.
On this occasion, His Eng. Haitham Al-Ohali, Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology, said: “The opening of the new Oracle cloud region in Riyadh is a critical step toward achieving the goals of Saudi Vision 2030 and reflects the Kingdom’s efforts to enhance the digital economy based on modern technologies and innovation.
This move will significantly contribute to enabling global and local companies to achieve innovation and promote the adoption of AI and cloud computing technologies across various sectors, enhancing the Kingdom’s leadership position both regionally and internationally.”
Richard Smith, Executive Vice President at Oracle for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, said: “Oracle’s rapid expansion of our cloud solutions in Saudi Arabia demonstrates our commitment to helping the Kingdom achieve its goal of developing one of the world’s strongest digital economies.
As part of our broader investment in cloud computing capabilities in the Kingdom, the Oracle Cloud region in Riyadh will accelerate the adoption of cloud and AI technologies to support innovation across all sectors of the Saudi economy while helping companies meet local data hosting requirements.”
Thanks to the addition of the Oracle Cloud region in Riyadh to the existing cloud region in Jeddah, customers and partners will benefit from low-latency access to cloud services, helping them gain better value from their data.
They can also take advantage of continuous availability and backup and disaster recovery capabilities within the two regions in the Kingdom, enhancing business continuity and helping address local data hosting regulations and requirements.
Furthermore, OCI’s sovereign AI capabilities enable customers to have comprehensive control over where their data is stored, the computing infrastructure, and how it is managed.
As a result, customers can leverage AI capabilities designed with regulatory frameworks for digital sovereignty in mind.
The unique cloud engineering of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) enables Oracle to launch specialized cloud regions with extensive cloud services inside customers’ data centers and to roll out more public cloud regions at a faster pace by starting with an appropriate deployment scale and then expanding as needed.
This approach meets the needs of all countries and markets without compromising cloud capabilities, providing the consistent performance, service level agreements, and global pricing that Oracle’s cloud infrastructure is known for.
Commenting on this event, Fahad Al-Hajri, CEO of Center3, said: “We are pleased to collaborate with Oracle and assist in expanding its cloud infrastructure in Saudi Arabia through the new cloud region in Riyadh.
This strategic initiative aligns with our shared vision to enhance technological innovation and the digital economy in the Kingdom.
Oracle’s cloud regions in Saudi Arabia will play a crucial role in strengthening data sovereignty, driving digital transformation, and enabling companies across the Kingdom to achieve greater flexibility and growth.”
Jyoti Lalchandani, Vice President and Regional Managing Director at IDC for the Middle East, Turkey, Africa, and India, said: “Oracle’s ongoing expansion of its cloud computing presence in Saudi Arabia is vital, especially as companies increasingly rely on AI and generative AI capabilities.
The local cloud infrastructure helps organizations ensure faster data processing, improve data security, and comply with national regulations, fostering innovation.
This strategic move supports the Kingdom’s vision to leverage AI capabilities to drive digital transformation, enabling companies to maximize the full potential of AI, enhance their competitiveness, and boost local value, thereby driving growth in the Kingdom.”.
