ITCC: Saudi's Smart City

A bird's eye view of what the ITCC will look like, upon completion in mid 2012.
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In two and a half years Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh will burst into the cyber-century and beyond with the completion of its Information Technology Communications Complex (ITCC), the Kingdom’s first “smart city”.

In order to attract the world’s leading Information Technology and Communications (ITC) companies to a place like Saudi Arabia, you need to offer the world’s best ITC services and infrastructure - this is the concept behind the Kingdom’s new US $1.65 billion (SR6.5 billion) ITCC development.

The project is being developed by Rayadah Investment Company, the investment arm of the government’s Public Pensions Agency (PPA), which is also developing the $10 billion King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh.

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As with KAFD, ITCC aims to generate income to support the PPA’s social security network, as well as achieve the broader goal of stimulating new jobs and industry to improve Saudi Arabia’s social future.

Currently, the Kingdom’s ITC sector is disjointed, lacks sufficient infrastructure and faces numerous challenges and limitations with its internet service providers. ITTC will change that.

Included in the project’s 776,000m² will be administration buildings for ITC companies, technical business centres, buildings for research, training and development and software production companies.

There will also be support buildings such as hotels, restaurants, a convention centre, residential apartments, a technical college and government service buildings.

When commissioned in mid-2012 it’s expected ITCC will make Riyadh a regional hub for ITC services, education, research and innovation.

Construction
The master plan for ITCC was designed by a joint venture between local consultants Zuhair Fayez and Singapore’s Jurong International. Zuhair Fayez then carried on with the detailed design of infrastructure and substructures.

In April 2008 Rayadah awarded a $65 million contract to local contractor El Seif Engineering for construction of infrastructure for the 487,000m² of the development.
 

The contract included a sewage treatment plant and a concrete-encased optic fibre cable network and was completed in August.

Meanwhile, mobilisation and excavation works for the superstructures began in July following the award of three more contracts for phase one of construction.