The Gulf’s AI Boom Has an Undersea Cable Problem

The Gulf’s AI ambitions beryllium connected thing amazingly fragile: a fistful of undersea cables moving done immoderate of the world’s astir volatile waterways.

Countries similar Saudi Arabia and the UAE person spent billions gathering AI infrastructure, attracting hyperscalers and positioning themselves arsenic aboriginal exporters of compute capacity. But arsenic the portion shifts from lipid wealthiness to AI-driven economies, the infrastructure carrying that information is progressively becoming a strategical vulnerability.

Undersea cables person agelong powered the planetary internet. Now, they are becoming geopolitical assets.

Following the escalation betwixt the US, Israel, and Iran earlier this year, experts warned that determination struggle could endanger captious cablegram infrastructure successful the Gulf. In May, media reports claimed Iran was considering taking power of each 7 undersea cables moving done the Strait of Hormuz.

Undersea cables transportation an estimated 95 percent of each planetary information traffic. For the Gulf, the occupation is concentration: Much of the region’s connectivity to Europe and the US inactive depends connected conscionable a fewer routes done the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.

The Middle East sits astatine the intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa, making the portion 1 of the world’s astir strategically important transit zones for planetary net traffic.

Today, a damaged cablegram could bash acold much than dilatory net speeds. It could undermine the Gulf’s full emerging AI concern model.

In galore ways, Gulf countries are attempting to alteration vigor wealthiness into AI infrastructure— exporting compute powerfulness and unreality capableness overmuch similar they erstwhile exported hydrocarbons.

For economies successful the Middle East, which are gearing up to go large-scale exporters of compute capacity, the value of and reliance connected these cables is growing, not slightest due to the fact that the hyperscale companies mounting up store successful the portion request higher-than-ever resilience.

Unlike accepted net traffic, AI infrastructure relies connected monolithic and continuous flows of information betwixt hyperscale information centers, unreality providers, and endeavor customers. Even abbreviated disruptions tin make important operational and fiscal consequences, making resilient fibre infrastructure a commercialized necessity alternatively than a luxury.

“Hyperscalers and determination carriers are pushing diversification due to the fact that their requirements person moved beyond bandwidth. They present request aggregate autarkic paths, predictable latency, and survivability during geopolitical stress,” says Imad Atwi, spouse astatine absorption consulting steadfast Strategy& Middle East.

AI Is Forcing the Gulf to Rethink Connectivity

The unit is mounting. In 2025, 2 cables linking Europe to the Middle East and Asia were chopped successful the Red Sea, degrading net connectivity crossed the Gulf for days and causing an estimated $3.5 cardinal successful damages from mislaid services.

That incidental was earlier the AI roll-out started picking up velocity and information centers started coming online. Now, hyperscalers are demanding the aforesaid resilience standards successful the Middle East that they already trust connected crossed transatlantic and transpacific routes. Those markets typically run crossed 4 oregon 5 physically abstracted web paths to minimize disruption risks.

The Gulf, by comparison, remains heavy babelike connected a constrictive attraction of routes.

“Hyperscalers present privation akin way diverseness crossed the Middle East, some for Gulf-Europe connectivity and for Europe-Asia postulation transiting the region,” says Bertrand Clesca, spouse astatine subsea cablegram specialists Pioneer Consulting.

For years, projected terrestrial and subsea routes crossed the Middle East struggled to determination guardant due to the fact that of regulatory barriers, governmental instability, and determination conflict.

Now, galore of those aforesaid corridors are being reconsidered arsenic captious integer infrastructure.

Atwi describes a multilayered strategy emerging crossed the Gulf. The archetypal furniture involves Gulf landing stations connected done terrestrial fibre corridors spanning Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Oman, past extending towards Europe and Asia done Jordan and the Levant. A 2nd furniture would present caller subsea-terrestrial systems bypassing chokepoints astir Egypt and Bab el-Mandeb. A 3rd would make bluish overland corridors done Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

The Internet’s New Strategic Corridors

Some of the region’s astir ambitious projects impact countries antecedently viewed chiefly done the lens of conflict.

Terrestrial systems, similar that projected via Syria, tin enactment up to 144 fibre pairs compared to the 24 emblematic successful today’s subsea cables, meaning the capableness imaginable is enormous. The downside is they’re supra ground, making them overmuch much susceptible to carnal disruptions. This is not an abstract risk.