Saudi Arabia is set to replace Egypt to become the Middle East’s new digital hub as the fibre-optic map of the Middle East is being redrawn, with the backing of powerful regional and global actors. As the fibre-optic cable industry begins to view Egypt as a choke-point due to the lack of alternative routes, multiple companies are planning to re-route their cable projects through Saudi Arabia.
Apr 5, 2023
A major project to change its route is Google’s USD 400 million Blue-Raman project. This project will utilize two adjacent but separate cables. The Blue cable, expected to open next year, runs from Europe to Tel Aviv in Israel, then crosses land to Jordan, where it connects with Google’s Raman cable, which links Jordan to Saudi Arabia. However, the cable will land at just a couple of places. The first is Duba, on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coastline, from where the cable heads 400 km further north to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, meeting the Blue cable on the Israeli side.
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State-owned Saudi Telecom Company (STC) also announced a USD 1 billion investment in 2022 to develop the MENA Hub to become one of the region’s leading telecoms players. STC is also developing Saudi Vision Cable (SVC), the kingdom’s first domestic cable which runs along the kingdom’s western coastline from Jeddah north to Neom, and is being called the “first ever high-capacity submarine cable” in the Red Sea region. STC will utilize the MENA Hub to run the East to Med Data Corridor (EMC), which will include six new data centres and four new subsea cables.
Furthermore, Saudi Arabia will be welcoming six new cables in the next three years, including Raman and SVC, adding to the pre-existing 15, according to TeleGeography data. Meta’s 45,000-km Africa cable will also land at Jeddah, Yanbu and Duba.
The most revolutionary cable planned for Saudi Arabia, however, is the Trans Europe Asia System (TEAS). The privately developed cable will run from Europe to India, avoiding Egypt. The special part of this cable is that part of its route will be across land. This cable too will be split into two: the north cable will run from Europe under the Mediterranean to Israel, then cross to Amman by land. From there it will travel east across Saudi Arabia to Ras al-Khair in the Persian Gulf. The south route meanwhile goes through Israel, then south to Aqaba, down through the Red Sea, through the Gulf of Aden and ultimately, like the other cable, land in Mumbai, India.
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Operators usually opt for underwater routes as they are safer and it is technically complicated to cross land, where operators have to mind the presence of populations and varied climate. However, land cables can sometimes follow a more direct route than submarine cables; and for the northern half of TEAS, that involves going straight across land rather than a far more circuitous route around the Arabian Peninsula. The project is being financed by investors from Israel, the US, the UK and the Gulf, with less publicity at the moment.
