Oracle Corp plans to invest$1.5 billion in Saudi Arabia in the coming years as it builds up its cloud footprint in the kingdom and opens its third public cloud region in Riyadh. This investment is included in an MoU that Oracle has signed with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) to help Saudi Arabian businesses take advantage of the latest innovations in the cloud.

As part of the MoU, Oracle will also work with MCIT to establish a commercial and operational model for an additional cloud region in Saudi Arabia that is aligned with Saudi government requirements and local data residency regulations. The Oracle Cloud Riyadh Region will join the existing Oracle Cloud Jeddah Region and the planned Oracle Cloud Region to be located in the futuristic city of NEOM.

The move comes amidst the increased demand for cloud computing, which has pushed technology companies such as Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon and Google to set up data centres across the world to speed up data transfer.