Kingdom Tower, the world's tallest tower, located in northern Jeddah, has reached an important milestone in the project that will set another new world record - the world's tallest construction crane. The singularly soaring skyscraper that will ultimately earn the accolade of world's tallest building, with a height of more than 1 kilometer, demands equally unique construction equipment, methods and materials, including the custom-built cranes supplied by Germany's Liebherr & WolffKran. The enormous yellow lifting devices, known as climbing cranes are designed to accompany the tower's growth both externally and internally, in the latter case utilizing any of the building's 65 interior elevator shafts to make the climb. The largest of the six cranes Liebherr type 357 HC-L can lift up to 18 tons at a speed of 44 meters/minute, with heights to parallel that of the tower. The cranes are attached to the body of the building but sits atop a phenomenally narrow tower support of only 2.4 meters X 2.45 meters. But it is not just the size that makes these new cranes unique. They feature the latest in heavy-lifting technology that will allow them to withstand harsh weather conditions, in particular, the strong winds that can sweep across the spectacular heights at which the cranes will ultimately be deployed. To operate this type of cranes, special highly experienced and certified operators will be hired. With the tower's foundation now in place, vertical, above-ground construction commenced in September. Plans call for the first ten floors to be completed by the end of the year. The Kingdom Tower features 170 stories, seven stories of which will be allocated for the five-star Four Seasons Hotel offering 200 rooms and 121 luxury serviced apartments, and seven stories for offices. The tower will also have 61 stories that include 318 housing units of various types' amenities, gyms, spas, cafes and restaurants, two sky lobbies and world's highest observation decks, located on the 644 meter-height, enabling visitors to view Jeddah and the Red Sea from high in the sky.

The builder of The Shard skyscraper in London will be the project manager for the planned US$ 1.2 billion, 1000 meters-tall Kingdom Tower skyscraper in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Mace will manage the development in a joint venture with construction consultant EC Harris, part of Dutch group Arcadis, and the tower will be built by Saudi construction firm Bin Laden Group. The project was unveiled by American firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. The tower's height is planned at almost three times the height of the Shard (at 310 meters), although by precisely how much is a secret. The structure will take over from Dubai's 828-metre Burj Khalifa as the world's tallest skyscraper. Plans were unveiled 18 months ago by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal as the centerpiece to the Kingdom City development in Jeddah, a major Red Sea port. With a total construction area of more than 500 thousand square meters, the Kingdom tower will include a five-star hotel, luxury flats, office space and the world's highest observatory, with breathtaking views of the Red Sea and the al-Sawarat mountains to the east. The Saudi Bin Laden group will begin construction later this year and the project should be completed in winter 2018. The proposals for the 1050 meters tall Azerbaijan Tower, for the 838-meter Sky City in Changsha , and Karachi Tower have also claimed the distinction of the world's next tallest building.

Although there is still no official word on when construction will start on Kingdom Tower, there are signs of progress. Saudi BAUER Foundation Contractors Ltd. This week announced it had signed a deal for the enabling works for Kingdom, the one-kilometer-tall tower planned for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. "The enabling works include 270 bored piles of 1.5 and 1.8 meter diameters, which have to be installed into the difficult ground conditions down to depths of 110 meters in order to provide the building's foundations," the company said in a press release. Bauer also did the piling work for Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building. The foundation work on Kingdom is scheduled to begin before the end of December and take about 10 months, the company said. The contract for the work is worth approximately US$ 32 million, the company said. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has given the go ahead for the construction of the world's tallest tower in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah by signing a US$ 1.2 billion contract with Bin Laden Group on August 2, 2011. On January 2012, local mass media reported, that Azerbaijan plans to build the world's tallest tower within the framework of Caspian Island project. Initially, the height of Azerbaijan Tower planned to be 560 meters, but parameters were changed. The developer of Caspian Island Avesta concern decided that the high of 185 floors tower to be 1050 meters, and it will be commissioned in 2018-2019. In this August Chinese Broad Sustainable Building Company made sensational announcement, that Changsha, China's Hunan province will be home to world's tallest building , which will be built in just 7 months. 220-store building will be 838 meters high. It is also reported, that construction will begin in this November.