Emirates Global Aluminium has broken ground on the region’s first 100 per cent renewable energy-powered industrial data centres at its Jebel Ali and Al Taweelah sites.
EGA shared that the new data centres will enable further deployment of AI and automation solutions while reducing its total IT energy consumption by 50 per cent.
Developed in conjunction with local technology provider Scientechnic, construction is part of its wider digital roadmap and is aimed at improving the resilience of EGA’s computing.
The data centres will be certified to the Uptime Institute’s Tier III standard.
Speaking on the development Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said: “EGA’s bold aspiration to innovate the future of aluminium production is a source of our global competitive advantage, and this includes leading our sector in the implementation of Industry 4.0. Our new data centres, combined with our existing cloud computing resources, transform our data processing capacity.”
Adding: “Improving the environmental sustainability of EGA’s computing infrastructure is part of our commitment to embed sustainability in everything we do. The construction of EGA’s new on-site data centres is an important milestone in our goal to establish a thriving manufacturing innovation ecosystem in the UAE.”
Carlo K Nizam, Chief Digital Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said: “Our new data centres will optimise the resilience and sustainability of EGA’s digital manufacturing platform which supports data-heavy artificial intelligence and advanced automation solutions. This will help enable EGA’s future ambition of self-optimising artificial intelligence driven plant operations, such as fully-autonomous crane and vehicle operations.”
Meanwhile, EGA’s strategic collaboration with Microsoft UAE shifts two-thirds of EGA’s server and applications infrastructure to Microsoft Azure Hybrid Cloud.
The hybrid cloud combines computing resources both on-site at EGA and in Microsoft’s data centres.
The development of the data centres and the use of the hybrid cloud together increase EGA’s data processing capacity by 2,300 times.