Driving the digital economy across the United Arab Emirates.
The provision of digital infrastructure is the cornerstone of the growth ambitions for the United Arab Emirates digital economy, supporting smart cities and industries across the Middle East.
Key information
- Location:
- Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Middle East
- Date started:
- 2017
- Completion date:
- 2019
- Client type:
- Wholesale Data Center Infrastructure Provider
- Main services:
- Contract administration, project and design management, planning, health and safety supervision
Meeting data demand
Khazna, which is majority-owned by Mubadala Investment Company, planned to expand its two existing data centres in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, in order to deliver IT data centre infrastructure space that could provide industry benchmark power supply and cooling services. This, in turn, would support growing demand and digitalisation across the region.
Khazna is the only dedicated commercial wholesale data centre provider in the UAE and one of the largest data centre infrastructure operators in the Middle East.
Innovating to avoid disruption
We led the tender process for the procurement and appointment of a design and build contractor, then oversaw and led the technical and cost consultant teams through the pre and post contract phases of the projects.
To meet the objective of delivering extensions on both facilities concurrently, innovative construction methodologies, including prefabricated modular mechanical and electrical installation units, were used.
Throughout the project, work was executed, integrated, tested and commissioned without affecting the operation of the existing live facility — a significant engineering achievement.
Using these innovative design solutions resulted in being able to increase the IT load capacity to deliver a combined 28 MegaWatt (MW) of IT load at each of Dubai and Abu Dhabi facilities.
Paving the way
Khazna’s data centre expansion comprised two new modular data centres at a size of approximately 17,166m2. The expansions have set new standards in energy efficiency and power usage effectiveness, thanks to a focus on efficiency in both design and equipment.
Both Khazna facilities have achieved the Tier III Certification of Design Documents and Constructed Facility from Uptime Institute which is an industry benchmark for infrastructure performance and operational resiliency.
The facilities have also been awarded ISO 27001 accreditation for recognising Khazna’s high levels of security and operational reliability, which guarantees the safeguarding of customer data.
The successful use of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing prefabrication technologies during the project are helping to pave the way for the construction of new data centres in the region, allowing fast, accurate construction while also helping to minimise wastage.
