Artist’s conception of the Jeddah Tower (left), and its current progress in the Jeddah Economic City on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Coast.
Construction on Jeddah Tower is accelerating at a pace few thought possible just a year ago. After sitting idle for years, the future world’s tallest skyscraper is now racing skyward, recently pushing close to the 80-floor mark and reigniting speculation about whether Dubai’s Burj Khalifa is finally about to be dethroned, as reported by Gulf News.
Formerly known as Kingdom Tower, Jeddah Tower is designed to rise more than one kilometer into the sky, making it the first building in history to break the 1,000-meter barrier. Construction officially resumed in January 2025 after a long pause caused by financial disputes, legal issues, and the pandemic. Since then, progress has been relentless. Crews are now adding a new floor roughly every three to four days, a blistering pace for a megatall structure of this complexity.
By late summer 2025, the tower had already passed 75 floors, with more than half of its total concrete core poured. The building is planned to reach 157 floors in total. Multiple cranes dominate the Jeddah skyline as high-pressure concrete pumps push material to ever greater heights. The project is being delivered by Saudi Binladin Group alongside Dar Al-Handasah and Turner Construction, using techniques refined on the world’s tallest structures.
At ground level, Jeddah Tower rests on one of the most formidable foundations ever built. Engineers designed a massive hybrid piled raft system, featuring a concrete pad around five meters thick spread over roughly 7,500 square meters. This slab is anchored by 270 deep bored piles driven as far as 110 meters into limestone and coral rock. For comparison, the Burj Khalifa’s foundation uses a thinner 3.7-meter concrete mat supported by 192 piles extending about 50 meters deep.
The tower is more than just a height contest. Plans include a multi-level retail podium, dining areas, event spaces, luxury residences, offices, and what is expected to be the world’s highest observation deck. Kingdom Holding Company, led by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has positioned the project as a flagship symbol of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, the country’s plan to diversify its economy beyond oil.
If all goes to plan, Jeddah Tower will be completed in 2028, officially surpassing the Burj Khalifa’s 828-meter height. But Saudi Arabia’s ambitions do not stop there. In Riyadh, the proposed Rise Tower aims to reach an almost unimaginable two kilometers tall. While still in the design and bidding phase, it signals how aggressively the kingdom is pushing into the future of supertall architecture.
For now, all eyes are on Jeddah. With floors rising week by week, the moment when the world’s tallest building changes hands no longer feels theoretical. It feels close.
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