{"id":40588,"date":"2026-02-16T18:04:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T18:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=40588"},"modified":"2026-02-16T18:04:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T18:04:27","slug":"iraqi-uae-consortium-plans-700m-data-cable-to-rival-saudi-syria-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=40588","title":{"rendered":"Iraqi-UAE consortium plans $700m data cable to rival Saudi-Syria link"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>An Iraqi-Emirati consortium plans a $700 million subsea-and-terrestrial data cable linking the United Arab Emirates to Turkey via Iraq, \u200cone of the project\u2019s backers said, just over a week after the announcement of a Saudi-backed fibre-optic project in Syria.<\/p>\n<p>Gulf \u200cneighbours Saudi Arabia and the \u2060UAE \u200bare each trying to tap into demand for connectivity \u200bin the region and \u200cbecome hubs for AI infrastructure, including \u200bdata centres, amid wider economic and geopolitical competition across the region.<\/p>\n<p>The Iraqi-UAE project, branded WorldLink, would comprise an undersea cable from Fujairah in the \u2060UAE to Iraq&#8217;s Faw peninsula on the Gulf, which will then run \u200coverland north to the Turkish border, Ali El Ekabi, head of Iraq&#8217;s Tech 964 \u2014\u00a0one of the three members of the consortium \u2014 told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Five-year programme<\/p>\n<p>El Ekabi said the \u2060project would be privately funded and rolled out \u2060in phases over \u200bthe next five \u200cyears. It aims to ease congestion and reduce transit times versus the traditional paths that run through the Suez Canal.<\/p>\n<p>The Emirati and Saudi governments did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia and Syria announced on February 7 plans to set up a fibre-optic network under a wider investment package. The project, dubbed \u2060SilkLink, is a roughly $1 billion push to rehabilitate Syria&#8217;s infrastructure and position it as a \u2060data route between Asia and Europe.<\/p>\n<p>In response to a request for comment on the UAE-Iraqi project, the Syrian telecoms ministry told Reuters in a statement: \u201cAdditional infrastructure investment improves route diversity and resilience for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSilkLink is designed to deliver low-latency and high-availability &#8230; and we expect to be highly competitive on both performance and resilience,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>Besides Tech 964, WorldLink&#8217;s sponsors \u2060include Iraq-Kurdish DIL Technologies and UAE-based Breeze Investments, according \u200bto El Ekabi, son of Iraqi real estate billionaire Namir El Ekabi. Iraq, which is trying to market itself as a stable transit corridor after decades of conflict, launched a $17b &#8220;Development Road&#8221; rail-and-road plan in \u200b2023 to connect Faw to Turkiye.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Iraqi-Emirati consortium plans a $700 million subsea-and-terrestrial data cable linking the United Arab Emirates to Turkey via Iraq, \u200cone of the project\u2019s backers said, just over a week after the announcement of a Saudi-backed fibre-optic project in Syria. Gulf \u200cneighbours Saudi Arabia and the \u2060UAE \u200bare each trying to tap into demand for connectivity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}