The Range (Hong Kong) Sandy Ridge Data Facility Cluster broke ground on Saturday, and is expected to become the largest computing facility when it is put into operation in 42 months in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

More than 300 industry professionals and partners attended the groundbreaking ceremony.

Covering about 110,000 square meters in Hong Kong's Northern Metropolis, the data center is projected to generate about 4.6 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 588 million U.S. dollars) in output and create 180 technology-focused jobs during its first three years of operation. By 2032, its computing power is expected to reach 180 ExaFLOPS, or 36 times Hong Kong's current capacity.

The data center's proximity to Shenzhen endows it with a critical role in the data industry chain of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, making it a potential catalyst for Hong Kong's artificial intelligence development, said Sun Dong, secretary for innovation, technology and industry of Hong Kong government, at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Zhou Chaonan, chairwoman of Range Intelligent Computing Technology Group Company Limited, said that Hong Kong's top-tier universities and large pool of talent are part of the reason companies like Range came here. She said Range will work to turn the Sandy Ridge project into one of the country's top sci-tech innovation clusters.