The Gulf’s AI boom is driving the race to control the data highways

The Gulf’s push to become an AI and cloud hub is triggering a multibillion-dollar buildout of subsea cables, terrestrial fiber and data centers intended to reroute and control critical data flows away from chokepoints such as the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Qatar’s Ooredoo Group is investing over $500 million in its Fibre in the Gulf (FIG) subsea cable system — a nearly 2,000-kilometre route with planned capacity of up to 720 terabits per second and scheduled for completion in late 2027 — while regional telcos and sovereign funds move to lock in landing stations, terrestrial corridors and local compute capacity.

“FIG will be the first cable connecting Asia to Europe, but completely circumventing both the Suez Canal and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and running from Oman through Iraq and Turkey into Europe,” said Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, CEO of Ooredoo Group. “When we launched this project 18 months ago, the Iran conflict we’re facing today wasn’t on the horizon. But even then, we were already seeing very strong demand for FIG. I think that the current events have reinforced that proposition.”

Context and project details

The urgency behind these projects has been amplified by Houthi attacks that have effectively halted subsea cable construction in the Red Sea since 2024, prompting tech giants to delay planned routes. Research cited in regional briefings shows that more than 90% of Europe–Asia data and telecommunications traffic currently transits Egypt and the Red Sea/Suez Canal corridors, underscoring the strategic need for alternative paths.

Ooredoo’s FIG is only one element of a broader strategy to own not just cable capacity but the infrastructure that carries data ashore and inland. The company has created Ooredoo Fibre Networks (OFN) as a dedicated entity to scale subsea and fiber investments and has partnered with du to land FIG in the UAE. Ooredoo is also advancing landing infrastructure in Qatar and Iraq and working with Saudi Telecom Company (STC) on the Saudi Oman Network Infrastructure Corridor (Sonic) — a 1,931-kilometer terrestrial fiber route designed to span from Jeddah through Riyadh and Muscat toward Oman, creating a “Digital Bridge” across the Arabian Peninsula.

• Ooredoo investment in FIG: more than $500 million
• FIG length and capacity: ~2,000 km and up to 720 Tbps; completion targeted late 2027
• Sonic corridor: 1,931 km; announced February last year and scheduled for completion within 24 months
• STC-led SilkLink investment: $800 million
• Data center and compute targets: regional ambition of 8–10 GW of AI compute; UAE 5 GW campus planned; Saudi HUMAIN targeting 1.9 GW by 2030
• Meeza: completed a 4 MW expansion nine months ahead of schedule in July
• Ooredoo’s Syntys target: 120 MW installed capacity by 2030

Outlook

Executives say the region’s data infrastructure race is driven by both commercial demand and sovereignty concerns. “As economies across the region become increasingly digital, there’s a growing focus on sovereignty—sovereign cloud, sovereign AI, and sovereign data residency,” Fakhroo said, noting that many solutions “require a presence in the country where they’re being sold.”

While the U.S.–Iran war and restricted access through the Strait of Hormuz have complicated cable-laying logistics and delayed some market rollouts, Ooredoo and partners are accelerating land-based builds and seabed surveys where possible. The combination of subsea, terrestrial and data center investments — backed by telcos, hyperscalers and state investment vehicles — positions the Gulf to reshape the physical routes of global data traffic even as geopolitical volatility persists.