RIYADH, Feb 16 (Reuters) - An Iraqi-Emirati consortium is planning a $700 million subsea-and-terrestrial data cable linking the United Arab Emirates to Turkey via Iraq, one of the project's backers said, just over a week after the announcement of a Saudi-backed fibre-optic project in Syria.
Gulf neighbours Saudi Arabia and the UAE are each trying to tap into demand for connectivity in the region and become hubs for AI infrastructure, including data centers, amid wider economic and geopolitical competition across the region.
The Iraqi-UAE project, branded WorldLink, would comprise an undersea cable from the UAE to Iraq's Faw peninsula on the Gulf, which will then run overland north to the Turkish border, Ali El Akabi, head of Iraq's Tech 964 - one of the three members of the consortium - told Reuters.
FIVE-YEAR PROGRAMME
El Akabi said the project would be privately funded and rolled out in phases over the next five years. It aims to ease congestion and reduce transit times versus the traditional paths that run through the Suez Canal.
The Emirati and Saudi governments did not respond to requests for comment.
Saudi Arabia and Syria announced on February 7 plans to set up a fibre-optic network under a wider investment package.
That project, dubbed SilkLink, is a roughly $1 billion push to rehabilitate Syria's infrastructure and position it as a data route between Asia and Europe.
In response to a request for comment on the UAE-Iraqi project, the Syrian telecoms ministry told Reuters in a statement: "Additional infrastructure investment improves route diversity and resilience for everyone."
"SilkLink is designed to deliver low-latency and high- availability... and we expect to be highly competitive on both performance and resilience," it said.
Besides Tech 964, WorldLink's sponsors include Iraq-Kurdish DIL Technologies and UAE-based Breeze Investments.
"AI infrastructure readiness is a necessity as we witness its adoption worldwide," said Nayef Al Ameri, chairman of Breeze Investments, in a statement. "WorldLink is designed to deliver the fastest and most reliable connectivity in the region serving these needs."
Iraq, which is trying to market itself as a stable transit corridor after decades of conflict, launched a $17 billion "Development Road" rail-and-road plan in 2023 to connect Faw to Turkey.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari in Riyadh; Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and David Holmes)
