Artificial intelligence could transform industry, but its environmental footprint is a mounting problem. Could innovation in Saudi Arabia lead the way in proving that sustainable AI is possible?
Manufacturing has been a cornerstone of economic growth and social development ever since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Yet while old industrial models were built on rigid supply chains and heavy infrastructure, today’s factories must be agile and efficient.
AI and automation are powering this shift by helping to digitalise industries and improve their resilience. But as demand for AI grows, so does the amount of computing power it needs. AI-related electricity consumption is expected to rise by 50 per cent a year between 2023 and 2030, so the infrastructure that underpins the technology will have to evolve rapidly to support industrial growth more sustainably.
That evolution is happening all over the world, but the Middle East is particularly vocal about its strong commitment to investing in AI technologies. “Every geographical location will have its pros and cons," says Vishal Wanchoo, CEO of Oxagon, a planned industrial city that is part of NEOM, the mega-project located on the Red Sea coast in northwest Saudi Arabia.
“In Saudi Arabia, our advantage lies in working on a greenfield site and being able to build AI into our infrastructure from the start rather than upgrading existing workflows and systems”
Vishal Wanchoo, CEO, Oxagon
Next-generation data centres could be a step towards cleaner AI
The legacy data centres that AI depends on are often inefficient and use large amounts of energy and water; they are unable to support the growth of large-scale AI models and Internet of Things (IoT) sustainably. “If you want to power industrial AI, you need the data infrastructure to back it up,” says Rajit Nanda, CEO of Riyadh-based data centre company DataVolt. “Failing to do so is akin to building the world’s fanciest car without having any roads to drive on.”
Nanda explains that DataVolt plans to build next-generation data centres by integrating solar energy, wind energy and hydrogen production with battery systems to reduce the need for batteries. A further ambition, he adds, is to develop advanced cooling solutions, including the use of seawater and immersing chips in liquid, to limit water consumption. Ultimately, the goal is to create fully renewable and circular energy systems.
Connectivity will be another important feature of the data centres built in the Middle East. The region’s investments in subsea cables give its data centres direct access to long-haul, high-capacity links to Africa, Europe and South Asia. “The submarine cables in the Red Sea region, where Oxagon is located, should allow DataVolt to serve roughly half the world’s population within milliseconds, meaning more regions can benefit from our energy solutions,” he says.
Manufacturers are starting to imagine the possible
If it can succeed in managing the environmental cost of AI, industry has an opportunity to build and scale infrastructure and production systems that are agile, resilient and fit for long-term growth.
Some manufacturers are already seeing results. Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), for example, has overhauled its energy-intensive operations by building new digital foundations that allow it to capture granular data from across its operations. It uses this data, in conjunction with hybrid cloud architecture, to bring advanced AI computer vision technologies to the factory floor and give managers real-time visibility into production performance. By improving process controls and compliance monitoring, this has helped EGA to cut down on variability and operator reaction time while improving compliance with standard operating procedures (SOP).
These are the kinds of predictive, automated, low-impact operations that will improve industrial sustainability, and the more these technologies are integrated into industrial networks, the greater their impact will be. Construction and development company Red Sea Global has also adopted advanced digital modelling techniques. By creating digital twins of its buildings, landscapes and bridges, and integrating them into a shared data environment, it has improved not only decision-making but also collaboration and ways of working throughout the business. This allows it to achieve better project outcomes while saving cost and time.
At NEOM’s Oxagon, this type of innovation is the starting point of every development. According to Wanchoo, technological adoption is vital to staying competitive as resources become increasingly scarce: “AI allows industry to be proactive. Coupled with cleaner energy, it gives businesses the opportunity to anticipate demand, balance resources and scale operations in a way that significantly improves efficiency and resilience.”
How to power the factories of the future
As AI disrupts traditional industries, manufacturing will depend on the seamless integration of digital and physical hubs. With its greenfield sites and strategic geographical location, the Middle East is in a position to lead this shift. In addition to being a test bed for the next generation of data centres, the region has a chance to rethink industrial processes. This is not about bolting technology onto existing infrastructure, but about building and scaling new AI-enabled hubs from scratch.
“This is an opportunity to experience one of the world’s biggest socioeconomic transitions from within,” says DataVolt’s Nanda. Turning that potential into progress now means cleaning up data centres so that AI can improve productivity more sustainably.
