Naver Cloud, HanmiGlobal partner for Saudi data centers

Naver Cloud and HanmiGlobal said on April 24 that they signed a strategic agreement to jointly pursue large data center projects in Saudi Arabia and other overseas markets.

The partnership brings together Naver Cloud, the cloud arm of Naver, and HanmiGlobal, a South Korean construction management firm.

Naver Cloud will handle infrastructure strategy and service design.

HanmiGlobal will oversee design consulting, project management, and local permits in Saudi Arabia.

Naver Cloud also operates in Saudi Arabia through a joint venture with the Saudi National Housing Corporation.

Meanwhile, HanmiGlobal has completed more than 50 projects in the Middle East since 2007.

🔗 Source: Chosun Daily

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

This data center supports Naver’s Saudi digital twin projects

The planned facility will back Naver’s large digital projects in Saudi Arabia through its local joint venture 1.
In 2023, Naver won a US$100 million contract to build digital twin platforms, virtual models of real cities, for Makkah, Medina, and Jeddah 1.
Those systems map urban areas to test flood risk, study traffic, and aid planning across more than 920,000 buildings 1.
Naver Innovation oversees the effort. The joint venture is backed by Naver Cloud and NHC Innovation, a unit of the state-owned National Housing Company (NHC), which handles 70% of Saudi real estate transactions 2, 3.

Data sovereignty is splintering the global cloud

Naver’s spending fits a wider move away from serving huge regions through a small number of data hubs 4.
Data localization rules, especially in fast-growing Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) markets, are pushing cloud providers to build facilities inside each country 4.
Geopolitical risk also shapes those choices. Naver earlier moved backup data from Hong Kong to Singapore 4.
Local storage and processing can help tech firms land government digital projects that require in-country infrastructure 4.