Gulf Construction Online

UAE Focus

In brief

01 February 2020

Sewa powers over 1,700 projects

THE Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (Sewa) said it has provided power connections to 1,741 new projects during 2019 covering key residential, industrial, commercial, governmental and agricultural categories across the city.

This comes as part of the Sewa’s keenness to ensure prompt electricity connections to different areas in accordance with the best security and safety systems.

Chairman Dr Rashid Al Leem pointed out that the emirate’s utility firm continues to develop networks and power distribution plants in all regions of Sharjah. It has also coordinated with more than 200 engineering consultant offices to activate its strategic partnership according to the required standards.

Data centre expansion complete

UK-BASED professional services company Turner and Townsend (T&T) has completed the project management on an expansion programme for Khazna Data Center – expanding its existing facilities in Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and Meydan in Dubai.

Khazna, which is majority-owned by Mubadala Investment Company, is the only dedicated commercial wholesale data centre provider in the UAE and one of the largest data centre infrastructure operators in the Middle East.

The expansion – comprising two new modular data centres at a size of 17,166 sq m – has delivered an additional IT load of 7.5 megawatts at each facility, one in Meydan Dubai and the other in Masdar City Abu Dhabi, allowing the firm to meet increasing customer demands and serve growing IT demand across the region.

With the completion of the expansion works, the two facilities boast a total IT load capacity in excess of 26 megawatts.

$272bn invested in airports

THE UAE has so far invested Dh1 trillion ($272 billion) in airport infrastructure development projects, the General Civil Aviation Authority’s director-general has said.

Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi said such investments span development projects across the country and a fleet of 884 commercial aircraft, a Wam news agency report quoted.

“I believe there is a need to inject more money in order to keep pace with massive and successive developments in the sector,” Al Suwaidi noted.

The GCAA director-general’s remarks came ahead of the Global Investment in Aviation Summit (GIAS 2020) that took place from January 27 to 29 in Dubai.