To meet the rapidly growing demand for its cloud services, Oracle today announced plans to open a third public cloud region in Saudi Arabia. Located in Riyadh, the new cloud region will be part of a planned US $1.5 billion investment from Oracle to expand cloud infrastructure capabilities in the Kingdom. The Oracle Cloud Riyadh Region will join the existing Oracle Cloud Jeddah Region and the planned Oracle Cloud Region to be located in the futuristic city of NEOM.

This investment is included in an MoU that Oracle has signed with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) to help Saudi Arabian businesses take advantage of the latest innovations in the cloud. The MoU was signed during Oracle CEO, Safra Catz’s recent visit to Riyadh in the presence of His Excellency Eng. Haitham AlOhali, Vice Minister, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).

To quickly meet the requirements of its growing cloud business in Saudi Arabia, Oracle will also expand the capacity of the Oracle Cloud Jeddah Region.

“In the last century, Saudi Arabia transformed its economy by developing the infrastructure needed to produce, refine, process and transport hydrocarbons. This century we are committed to creating the digital infrastructure that will underpin future economies,” said His Excellency Khalid Al-Falih, Minister of Investment. “Oracle’s decision to expand its cloud computing capacity in the Kingdom will play a key role in unlocking the opportunities that rapid technological advancements are creating. MISA will continue in its quest to enable the building of a robust digital infrastructure, by creating an attractive environment for these investments—for example, by establishing special economic zones that are tailored to particular industries such as cloud computing and digital transformation.”

As part of the MoU, Oracle will also work with MCIT and the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) to establish a commercial and operational model for an additional cloud region in Saudi Arabia that is aligned with Saudi government requirements and local data residency regulations. Oracle will also work with MCIT to help foster the development of Saudi Arabia’s cloud industry.

Unique among hyperscale providers, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) offers customer choice to deploy OCI based on regulations, data residency, or latency requirements. OCI distributed cloud includes its public regions, Dedicated Region, Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer, multicloud offerings, and recently-announced Oracle Alloy.

“Oracle’s investment will rapidly accelerate the cloud transformation across Saudi Arabia’s business and public sector,” said Richard Smith, Executive Vice President, Technology – EMEA, Oracle. “Oracle Cloud delivers pioneering innovation in technologies like AI, Machine Learning, and IoT, and it will help fuel the economic growth and digital transformation that is an integral part of the Saudi Vision 2030.”

Analyst Commentary

“Oracle’s announcement today is a significant milestone in Saudi Arabia’s rapidly evolving tech landscape and indicative of the growing demand for public cloud services that exists within the Kingdom. Indeed, IDC estimates that public cloud spending in Saudi Arabia will increase at a CAGR of 26.8% over the coming years to reach $3.1 billion in 2026, spurred by organizations looking to leverage the power of the cloud to modernize their critical business applications and become cloud native,” said Jyoti Lalchandani, Group VP and Regional MD, Middle East, Turkey and Africa, IDC.

“With Saudi Arabia set to be the fastest-growing economy worldwide in 2023, the opportunity it presents is unprecedented. Given the various economic diversification initiatives underway, as well as the slew of giga and mega project announcements, technology spending in the Kingdom is poised for strong growth. This growth will primarily be driven by the acceleration of digital transformation, with cloud computing, among other technologies, facilitating large-scale innovation and transformation across industries and economic sectors.”

“The growing interest among hyperscale cloud service providers in setting up in-country nodes in Saudi Arabia indicates the increasing importance being placed on data residency and sovereignty. IDC expects in-country investments by cloud hyperscalers to intensify further as 73% of Saudi CIOs who responded to our recent survey stated that they would move critical applications and data to a public cloud as long as the data resides in an in-country datacenter,” added Jyoti Lalchandani.

A Focus on Driving Sustainable Operations Across the Globe

Underscoring its ongoing focus on sustainability, Oracle has committed to powering all worldwide Oracle Cloud Regions with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. Several Oracle Cloud regions, including regions in North America, South America, and all 10 regions in Europe, are already powered by 100 percent renewable energy, which enables customers to run their computing services more sustainably and with a lower carbon footprint. To further advance its commitment to sustainable operations, Oracle recycled 99.9 percent of its retired hardware in FY’22.

Oracle Cloud’s Rapidly Growing Global Footprint

Oracle provides a broad and consistent set of cloud services across 41 commercial and government cloud regions in 22 countries on five continents to serve its growing global customer base. OCI currently operates 34 commercial regions and seven government regions, in addition to multiple dedicated and national security regions.

Currently available Oracle Cloud Regions:

• Asia Pacific: Tokyo (Japan), Osaka (Japan), Seoul (South Korea), Chuncheon (South Korea), Mumbai (India), Hyderabad (India), Sydney (Australia), Melbourne (Australia), Singapore (Singapore)
• Americas: San Jose (United States), Phoenix (United States), Ashburn (United States), Chicago (United States), Toronto (Canada), Montreal (Canada), São Paolo (Brazil), Vinhedo (Brazil), Santiago (Chile), Querétaro (Mexico)
• Europe: Frankfurt (Germany), London (United Kingdom), Newport, Wales (United Kingdom), Zürich (Switzerland), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Marseille (France), Stockholm (Sweden), Milan (Italy), La Courneuve, Paris (France), Madrid (Spain)
• Middle East: Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Abu Dhabi and Dubai (U.A.E), Jerusalem (Israel)
• Africa: Johannesburg (South Africa)
• Government: Two general U.S. Government regions, three U.S. Department of Defense specific Government regions, several U.S. National Security regions, and two United Kingdom Government regions (London and Newport, Wales)

Additional Resources

• Learn more about the Oracle Cloud Regions
• Learn more about Oracle Cloud Infrastructure