Oman’s Ministry attracts private investments in data hosting and processing

Muscat: The Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology (MTCIT) has attracted a consortium of local and international investors in the area of data hosting and processing in Dhofar. Green Data City is establishing a large-scale centre for hosting, process and mining data for various applications, including distributed ledger technologies, blockchains and Fintech, as a result of a partnership between local and International digital innovation companies.

The MTCIT’s mandate is to attract digital investments to the country in advanced technologies, including data hosting and processing. The ministry hopes through this investment opportunity to accelerate the adoption of distributed ledger technologies, blockchains and fintech. MTCIT believes that such advanced technologies have a promising future globally and is endeavoruing to localise technologies and create job opportunities for young Omani IT professionals.

The total value of this new investment is more than OMR 150 million in the full-fledged setup of the facility and will assist in providing more than 150 job opportunities during the construction and operations of the center. The investment opportunity capitalises on the digital investment incentives that Oman offers and more specifically on the abundance of submarine data cable landing in the Sultanate that offers high-speed worldwide connectivity. Additionally, Dhofar enjoys natural competitive advantages to provide alternative sources of energy to power the data centre including wind, solar and deep-sea cooling.

Eng. Saeed bin Hamoud Al Mawali, Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, said: “We seek to build partnerships in cooperation with leading local and international private sector entities in the various areas of digital innovations including data-related projects.

He added, Oman is positioned as a test-bed hub for advanced technologies given the competitive advantages that the Sultanate enjoys in attracting digital investments. Green Data City is one of the unique digital investments in this domain.

The minister also added that attracting digital investments will accelerate the objectives of the National Digital Economy Program (NDEP) and will help achieve the desired growth in the use of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies and the maximising the use of submarine data cables and renewable energy opportunities to make Sultanate a hub for green and sustainable data centres in the region.

Eng. Olivier Ohnheiser, CEO of the Green Data City, stated that Dhofar is strategically positioned and had unique advantages to establish sustainable hyper-scale data centres, such as a stable economy, cool weather in the Salalah region, unique access to cold deep ocean waters next to the shore and high renewable energy.

He added that the Green Data City will be developed in two phases; the first phase one will be powered by the traditional electricity grid while Phase two will depend on renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and deep-sea water cooling to operate the 200 MW facility.