The company will also provide network consultancy and advisory services to the city’s master developers, Emaar, the Economic City (EEC).

Located on the Red Sea coast north of Jeddah, the 168 million square-metre KAEC is the largest private sector project in the region. It includes a 14 million square-metre seaport with an annual capacity of 10 million TEUs, and an industrial zone. The UAE’s Emal International has recently announced plans to build a $5bn aluminium smelter in the city.

Cisco is already developing the communications network for the kingdom’s Knowledge Economic City (KEC). KEC is expected to spend $266m on building the communications infrastructure to connect its 4.8 million square metre development, and a total of $6.6bn on information technology and telecommunications over 12 years (MEED 01:06:07).