Saudi SDAIA launches 480 MW Hexagon AI data center mega-project

Hexagon is a reminder that the race to AGI is as much about sovereign compute and data infrastructure as it is about model weights. A 480 MW Tier IV facility dedicated to government workloads is effectively a national AI backbone: it centralizes compute, storage, and data governance under a single authority (SDAIA) that can prioritize long-horizon, state-scale projects over short-term commercial returns.([china.org.cn](https://www.china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2026-01/02/content_118257632.shtml?utm_source=openai)) In a world where access to reliable power, cooling, and GPUs is the binding constraint on model scaling, countries that lock in large, state-backed data centers gain negotiating power with both hyperscalers and model vendors.

Strategically, Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as a regional AI infrastructure hub, complementing its cloud investments and Vision 2030 goals. Hosting sensitive government data in-country, with an explicit AI mandate, also gives SDAIA leverage to drive cross-ministry data integration—fuel for training domain-specific models in health, energy, and public services. For the broader AGI race, Hexagon underscores a shift: instead of just buying cloud from US hyperscalers, governments are building their own hyperscale-grade facilities. That complicates the geopolitical map of compute, potentially fragmenting where and how frontier models are trained and deployed.