Dubai Airports has awarded China’s Huawei Technologies a contract to design and build a modular tier-III data centre at Dubai International airport.

The data centre at Dubai International will be the first of two planned modular facilities that Huawei will build for Dubai Airports. The first facility will be constructed at Dubai International in 2017. The timeline for the other data centre has not been confirmed.

Upon completion, the two data centres will operate as a pair of mirrored Tier III data centres interconnected through a dedicated fibre optic link that will provide high-level resilience and availability to support the critical operations of Dubai Airports.

The twin data centres will provide a stable and reliable environment for Dubai Airports to host its private cloud. The facilities will be applying for certification with the Uptime Institute and they are likely to become the world’s first certified tier-III modular data centre.

In principle, a tier-III data centre offers data availability of 99.82 per cent, or roughly 95 minutes of maximum annual downtime. Unlike a traditional data centre, a ‘modular” data centre infrastructure is one that is customisable or scalable based on the required application.

Dubai Airports operates both Dubai International and Al-Maktoum International airports.

Last year, Dubai International accommodated 78 million passengers. Passenger traffic at the airport is expected to reach 85 million this year, and 118.5 million a year in 2023.

The airport’s current capacity stands at 90 million passengers a year, with no room left for additional major infrastructure to be built at its location.

The airport operator has said it will tap innovation and new technologies to optimise the airport’s operation and accommodate rapid growth.