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Firm to build Ooredoo’s Gulf fibre optic network

30 January 2025

Doha-headquartered Ooredoo Group has signed an agreement to build a new submarine cable connecting seven countries in the region with France’s Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN).

Known as the Fibre in Gulf (FIG) project, the network will link Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.

Ooredoo said the project will provide all GCC states with a “low-latency, shorter and secure route” to a new corridor connecting Europe with up to 24 fibre pairs and a capacity of up to 720 terabytes per second.

DeepSeek complicates regional data centre choices

It said: “This advanced infrastructure will deliver exceptional connectivity benefits to hyperscalers, business customers, governments, artificial intelligence (AI) providers, data centres and telecom operators, by enhancing network reliability and security, as well as significantly enhancing connection speeds.”

Ooredoo is ramping up investment to secure its role as a leading digital infrastructure provider in the region.

Recent initiatives cover AI, data centres, submarine cable systems, fintech and Internet of Things technologies.

Last year, its subsidiary, Ooredoo Oman, signed an agreement to land the 2Africa Cable System in Barka and Salalah in Oman.

In July, Ooredoo signed QR2bn ($546.2m) of financing from three local banks to expand its data centre network.

Qatar National Bank, Doha Bank and Masraf Al-Rayan agreed to provide the 10-year financing facility to help expand the firm’s existing data centre network to meet demand for future AI applications.

The financing deal comes three months after Nvidia signed a deal to deploy its AI technology at data centres owned by Ooredoo in Qatar and five other countries: Algeria, Tunisia, Oman, Kuwait and the Maldives.

The deal will make Ooredoo the first company in the region that can give its data centre clients in those countries direct access to Nvidia’s AI and graphics processing unit technology.

The Middle East region – mainly Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Qatar – has a data centre operational capacity of about 340MW, which is expected to rise to around 537MW by 2029, according to US-based real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Photo credit: Ooredoo

This month’s special report on Qatar includes: 

> GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY: Qatar economy rebounds alongside diplomatic activity
> BANKING: Qatar banks look to calmer waters in 2025
> UPSTREAM: QatarEnergy strives to raise gas and oil production capacity
> DOWNSTREAM: Qatar chemical projects take a step forward
> POWER & WATER: Facility E award jumpstarts Qatar’s utility projects
> CONSTRUCTION: Qatar construction shows signs of recovery

https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/13350784/main.jpg
Jennifer Aguinaldo

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