ICS Arabia Desert Dragon (Riyadh phase) is a data center project in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia, operated by ICS Arabia. It is under construction. It is planned for 65 MW of IT load.
Latest change on record: entered the record as under construction on 1 November 2024. Record last checked against its sources on 22 October 2026.
Next gate to watch: Power arranged.
Build odds is ArusGrid's reading of the public record, not a forecast, a rating or advice. It counts the gates this project has passed in public sources. Private progress does not show, a passed gate can be undone, and projects that pass every gate still stop. The method has not yet been tested against outcomes. How it works.
How Saudi Arabia approves, powers and taxes data centers is on Data center rules in Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh holds 14 active projects with 1,216 MW of planned IT load between them, and ICS Arabia Desert Dragon (Riyadh phase) ranks 4th by planned capacity. Of those, 1 is operational, 1 is operational and expanding, 5 are under construction, 3 are at the land and permitting stage and 4 are announced only. No third party publishes a colocation vacancy rate for Riyadh, and ArusGrid does not estimate one.
ICS Arabia has 1 other in Saudi Arabia tracked by ArusGrid, including ICS Arabia Desert Dragon (Jeddah phase). Named funding comes from Lumaotong Group and China Mobile International. The named user of the compute is XDS Datacentres (reported, unconfirmed).
The stage was recorded as under construction on 1 November 2024. Cooling uses hybrid air and liquid cooling.
The US export control position for advanced AI chips in Saudi Arabia, as of 19 November 2025, is recorded as “Case-by-case authorisation only”. ArusGrid holds 6 public sources for this project, the latest dated 6 January 2026, and last checked the record on 22 October 2026.
Construction or financing is evidenced, or several independent signals agree. The rules are fixed and published on the Methodology page.
Reaching this stage requires a dated construction source, which corroborates the project on its own.
A reported 15-year lease for 10MW of AI workload capacity. Stated AI positioning by the operator.
A party to this project (its operator, that operator's group, a funder, or a confirmed client) is headquartered in China or Macau or has an ultimate parent there. US rules require a licence for advanced AI chips destined to such entities wherever they are located. This describes the rule and says nothing about whether a licence was sought, granted or refused. Criteria are published on the Methodology page.
Case-by-case authorisation only · Case-by-case authorisation only (2025-11-19) source
10 MW · 10MW immersion-cooled facility handed to XDS by June 2026, XDS operates it for 15 years · as of 2025-07-09
DCD reports that Desert Dragon Data Centers, the ICS subsidiary, will design and construct the Riyadh facility before handing it to XDS by June 2026; XDS operates it for 15 years. Adds the MW, the term and the date to the existing reported client.
Source · ICS Arabia and Dubai's XDS to deliver immersion cooled data centers in Saudi Arabia (DCD, 2025-07-09)
No published price band exists for Saudi Arabia, and ArusGrid does not estimate from the regional benchmark alone. What was searched is listed on the Colo prices page.
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