Saudi Arabia revitalized the world's tallest skyscraper after more than 10 years of abandonment: the $20 billion megatower will resume its growth towards 1,000 meters with 167 floors, nearly 900,000 tons, and extreme technology in the Red Sea desert.

Saudi Arabia revitalized the world’s tallest skyscraper after more than 10 years of abandonment: the $20 billion megatower will resume its growth towards 1,000 meters with 167 floors, nearly 900,000 tons, and extreme technology in the Red Sea desert.

Written by Alisson Ficher

Published on 19/05/2026 at 13:00

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Resumption of the Jeddah Tower puts Saudi Arabia back at the center of the global race for engineering megaprojects, with the accelerated advancement of the tower that aims to surpass 1,000 meters in height and redefine the technical limits of civil construction in a desert environment near the Red Sea.

After years of stoppage, the Jeddah Tower has resumed progress in Saudi Arabia and has already surpassed the mark of 100 floors and 400 meters in height, according to an update released in April 2026 by Thornton Tomasetti, a company involved in the structural engineering of the project.

Designed to exceed 1,000 meters in height, the megatower intends to surpass the Burj Khalifa and take the title of the tallest building on the planet, reinforcing Saudi Arabia’s strategy to transform Jeddah into one of the main urban and financial centers in the Middle East.

In January 2025, the Kingdom Holding Company officially confirmed the resumption of construction, including the return of concreting and large-scale construction on the shores of the Red Sea, the region chosen to host one of the largest urban projects ever announced by the country.

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Jeddah Tower resumed growth after years of stoppage

Started in 2013, the construction lost momentum from 2017 and ended up entering a long period of stoppage, a scenario caused by difficulties involving contractors, financing, administrative instability, and later, the global impacts caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Even in the face of interruptions, the project remained part of Saudi Arabia’s strategic planning and continued to be treated as a relevant piece of Vision 2030, a program created to reduce economic dependence on oil and expand investments in tourism, technology, and infrastructure.

Extreme engineering supports a tower over 1 kilometer

Long before reaching the sky, the engineering of the Jeddah Tower had to solve complex challenges below the surface, mainly due to the conditions of the coastal terrain near the Red Sea and the need to support a structure with unprecedented dimensions.

To ensure stability, the foundation system combines a large structural raft with 270 drilled piles, a solution developed to distribute extreme loads and support the weight of the tower in an environment marked by intense heat, saline humidity, and high risk of corrosion.

Technical studies indicate that some of these piles reach about 105 meters in depth, directly connected to a reinforced concrete base prepared to withstand decades of thermal variations and continuous stresses caused by the structure.

Additionally, the project requires high-performance concrete, specialized steel, and strict material control, as small structural failures could have significant impacts on a construction planned to exceed the one-kilometer height mark.

Above ground, the tower adopts a design with three asymmetrical wings that gradually taper as the height increases, a solution created to reduce wind effects and better distribute stresses on the central core of the structure.

Vertical city will have hotel, apartments, and high-speed elevators

Planned to function as a vertical city, the Jeddah Tower is expected to house luxury apartments, offices, a hotel, commercial areas, and a panoramic observatory at an unprecedented height, along with dozens of high-speed elevators distributed throughout the central core of the building.

Although different methodologies are used to account for technical floors and occupiable areas, the most cited forecast indicates that the complete structure will have about 167 floors, consolidating the development among the most ambitious projects ever executed in modern engineering.

Another decisive challenge involves the logistics necessary to keep the construction site continuously operating in a desert environment, requiring a constant supply of concrete, steel, glass, fuel, machinery, and thousands of specialized workers.

To reduce the impacts of extreme heat, winds, and dust on materials and equipment, part of the operations is planned at specific times, while technical systems continuously monitor the structural performance and conditions of the construction.

Megaproject is part of the Vision 2030 strategy

With the resumption of construction and the accelerated advancement of the structure, the Jeddah Tower has once again attracted international attention and is again being regarded as one of the greatest challenges of contemporary engineering, alongside other megaprojects currently being developed by Saudi Arabia.

More than 100 floors have already been completed, a result that reinforced optimism around the project after years marked by uncertainties about financing, material supply, execution pace, and operational stability of the construction site.

Even though the most mentioned forecast indicates completion around 2028, projects of this magnitude usually undergo technical and financial adjustments during construction, especially in structures that operate close to the known limits of modern civil engineering.

If completed according to the current plan, the tower is expected to become a global showcase for technologies related to deep foundations, high-performance concrete, wind resistance at high altitudes, and vertical urban operation in regions with extreme climates.

Saudi Arabia revitalized the world’s tallest skyscraper after more than 10 years of abandonment: the $20 billion megatower will resume its growth towards 1,000 meters with 167 floors, nearly 900,000 tons, and extreme technology in the Red Sea desert.

Jeddah Tower resumed growth after years of stoppage

Extreme engineering supports a tower over 1 kilometer

Vertical city will have hotel, apartments, and high-speed elevators

Megaproject is part of the Vision 2030 strategy

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Saudi Arabia revitalized the world’s tallest skyscraper after more than 10 years of abandonment: the $20 billion megatower will resume its growth towards 1,000 meters with 167 floors, nearly 900,000 tons, and extreme technology in the Red Sea desert.

Jeddah Tower resumed growth after years of stoppage

Extreme engineering supports a tower over 1 kilometer

Vertical city will have hotel, apartments, and high-speed elevators

Megaproject is part of the Vision 2030 strategy

While an average building in London or New York takes three years to be completed, in China a 26-story tower went up in five days with about 100 workers, and the global modular construction market already moves US$ 95 billion per year.

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