An Iraqi-Emirati consortium plans a $700 million undersea and terrestrial data cable linking the United Arab Emirates and Turkey via Iraq, one of the project’s backers said just over a week after announcing a Saudi-backed fiber-optic project in Syria.
Gulf neighbors Saudi Arabia and the UAE are each seeking to capture regional connectivity demands and become hubs for AI infrastructure, including data centers, in a broader economic and geopolitical competition across the region.
The Iraq-UAE project, named WorldLink, would consist of an undersea cable from the UAE’s Fujairah to Iraq’s Faw Peninsula in the Gulf, and then run overland north to the Turkish border, Ali El Ekabi, director of Iraq’s Tech964, one of the three members of the consortium, told Reuters.
5 year program
El Ekabi said the project would be privately funded and rolled out in stages over the next five years. It is aimed at easing congestion and reducing travel times compared to traditional roads through the Suez Canal.
The governments of the Emirates and Saudi Arabia did not respond to requests for comment.
Saudi Arabia and Syria on February 7 announced plans to build a fiber optic network under a broader investment package.
The project, called SilkLink, is an approximately $1 billion investment to repair Syria’s infrastructure and position it as a data route between Asia and Europe.
In response to a request for comment on the UAE-Iraq project, the Syrian Ministry of Communications told Reuters in a statement: “Additional infrastructure investments will increase route diversity and resilience for all.”
“SilkLink is designed for low latency and high availability, and we expect it to be highly competitive in both performance and resiliency,” the company said.
In addition to Tech 964, WorldLink’s sponsors include Iraqi Kurdish DIL Technologies and UAE-based Breeze Investments, said El Ekabi, son of Iraqi real estate billionaire Namir El Ekabi.
Iraq, which is trying to promote itself as a stable transportation corridor after decades of conflict, has launched a $17 billion “Development Road” rail and road project in 2023 to connect Fau to Turkey.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari in Riyadh; Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and David Holmes)
