Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), a UAE-based aluminum industrial corporation, has broken ground on data centers at its Jebel Ali and Al Taweelah sites.
The company said the data centers will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy, and will enable EGA to use additional artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in its industrial operations.
This is planned to include AI-driven plant operations such as fully autonomous cranes and vehicles.
The company also hopes that the new data centers will enable it to reduce its total IT energy consumption by around 50 percent through real-time AI optimization of power and cooling management.
The data centers are being developed in partnership with engineering firm Scientechnic, and will be designed according to the Uptime Institute's Tier III standard.
Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, CEO of EGA, said: “EGA’s bold aspiration to innovate the future of aluminum production is a source of our global competitive advantage, and this includes leading our sector in the implementation of Industry 4.0.
"The construction of EGA’s new on-site data centers is an important milestone in our goal to establish a thriving manufacturing innovation ecosystem in the UAE.”
Alongside EGA's upcoming data centers, the company uses the Microsoft Azure Hybrid Cloud, having migrated around two-thirds of its servers and applications thus far. The deployment sits within both EGA's on-premise data center and Microsoft data centers.
EGA has been operating in the UAE for over 30 years and specializes in improving the efficiency of aluminum smelting.
Scientechnic is headquartered in Dubai and provides electrical, mechanical, power, automation, and mobility technologies solutions.
Also in the UAE, Batelco, and e& signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to land the Al Khaleej subsea cable in the country, a branch of the SEA-ME-WE 6 cable system, in February 2024. The cable will connect the UAE to Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar.
February also saw Khazna Data Centers launching a new data center with 31.8MW of IT capacity in Abu Dhabi.
