A foundation stone-laying ceremony has been held for a new police data center in Hulhumalé, Maldives.

Dubbed the Safety and Security Building, and located in the capital Malé, the facility will be home to the new Maldives Police Service's Cyber Security Operations Center - and a data center - and will be used for artificial intelligence, big data analysis, and data science workloads.

The facility is being developed by Emirati company Presight, which will provide technical infrastructure and help the Maldives develop "advanced security solutions" in partnership with "allied nations."

Delegates from the UAE attended the ceremony, including Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, the UAE's Chief of Cybersecurity. Others in attendance included Ali Ihusaan, Minister of Internal Security and Technology; Ismail Naveen, Commissioner of Police of the Maldives Police Service; and representatives from Presight.

Presight is a G42 company and is based in Abu Dhabi.

Details about the data center have not been shared, but DCD has reached out for more information about the location, size, and capacity of the facility.

DataCenterMap notes only two data centers in the Maldives, both operated by Ooredoo and located in Malé. Alongside this, a data center was launched in Hulhumalé in February of this year by Maldivian telco Dhiraagu.

The Maldives hosts the SeaMeWe-6, IAX, and Peace subsea cables, and eight of its islands are connected by the DSCoM cable.

Hulhumalé is a reclaimed artificial island built up by pumping sand from the sea floor. Work began on the four sq km (1.5 sq mi) island in 1997, and it was inaugurated in 2004. It is the fourth largest of the 187 inhabited islands in the Maldives.