As tech behemoths Meta and Google delay subsea cable projects through the Red Sea amid rising security risks, many of the Gulf’s tech players are ramping up investment in the data highways needed to support the region’s rapidly expanding AI and cloud ambitions. While geopolitical tensions are making traditional Europe—Asia routes through the Red Sea increasingly difficult to build and maintain, countries including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar are pouring billions into alternative subsea and terrestrial fiber routes in a bid to ensure that their ambitious plans to become AI powerhouses are not derailed. Playing a key role in that push is Qatar’s Ooredoo Group, which has been steadily transforming itself from a traditional telco into a digital infrastructure provider over the last three years. Its Fibre in the Gulf (FIG) subsea cable system, scheduled for completion in late 2027, will be the largest ever built in the GCC. The system, in which Ooredoo is investing over $500 million, will span almost 2,000 kilometres and deliver planned capacity of up to 720 terabits per second—enough to move millions of gigabits of data every single second. Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/12/the-gulf-ai-boom-is-driving-the-race-to-control-the-data-highways/ submitted by /u/fortune
Originally posted by u/fortune on r/ArtificialInteligence
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