The Gulf’s AI Boom Has an Undersea Cable Problem

The Gulf’s AI ambitions depend on something surprisingly fragile: a handful of undersea cables running through some of the world’s most volatile waterways. Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have spent billions building AI infrastructure, attracting hyperscalers and positioning themselves as future exporters of compute capacity. But as the region shifts from oil wealth to AI-driven economies, the infrastructure carrying that data is increasingly becoming a strategic vulnerability. Undersea cables have long powered the global internet. Now, they are becoming geopolitical assets. Following the escalation between the US, Israel, and Iran earlier this year, experts warned that regional conflict could threaten critical cable infrastructure in the Gulf. In May, media reports claimed Iran was considering taking control of all seven undersea cables running through the Strait of Hormuz. Undersea cables carry an estimated 95 percent of all international data traffic. For the Gulf, the problem is concentration: Much of the region’s connectivity to Europe and the US still depends on just a few routes through the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz. The Middle East sits at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa, making the region one of the world’s most strategically important transit zones for global internet traffic. Today, a damaged cable could do far more than slow internet speeds. It could undermine the Gulf’s entire emerging AI business model. In many ways, Gulf countries are attempting to transform energy wealth into AI infrastructure— exporting compute power and cloud capacity much like they once exported hydrocarbons. For economies in the Middle East, which are gearing up to become large-scale exporters of compute capacity, the importance of and reliance on these cables is growing, not least because the hyperscale companies setting up shop in the region demand higher-than-ever resilience. Unlike traditional internet traffic, AI infrastructure relies on massive and continuous flows of data between hyperscale data centers, cloud providers, and enterprise customers. Even short disruptions can create significant operational and financial consequences, making resilient fiber infrastructure a commercial necessity rather than a luxury. “Hyperscalers and regional carriers are pushing diversification because their requirements have moved beyond bandwidth. They now need multiple independent paths, predictable latency, and survivability during geopolitical stress,” says Imad Atwi, partner at management consulting firm Strategy& Middle East. AI Is Forcing the Gulf to Rethink Connectivity The pressure is mounting. In 2025, two cables linking Europe to the Middle East and Asia were cut in the Red Sea, degrading internet connectivity across the Gulf for days and causing an estimated $3.5 billion in damages from lost services. That incident was before the AI roll-out started picking up speed and data centers started coming online. Now, hyperscalers are demanding the same resilience standards in the Middle East that they already rely on across transatlantic and transpacific routes. Those markets typically operate across four or five physically separate network paths to minimize disruption risks. The Gulf, by comparison, remains heavily dependent on a narrow concentration of routes. “Hyperscalers now want similar route diversity across the Middle East, both for Gulf-Europe connectivity and for Europe-Asia traffic transiting the region,” says Bertrand Clesca, partner at subsea cable specialists Pioneer Consulting. For years, proposed terrestrial and subsea routes across the Middle East struggled to move forward because of regulatory barriers, political instability, and regional conflict. Now, many of those same corridors are being reconsidered as critical digital infrastructure. Atwi describes a multilayered strategy emerging across the Gulf. The first layer involves Gulf landing stations connected through terrestrial fiber corridors spanning Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Oman, then extending towards Europe and Asia through Jordan and the Levant. A second layer would introduce new subsea-terrestrial systems bypassing chokepoints around Egypt and Bab el-Mandeb. A third would create northern overland corridors through Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The Internet’s New Strategic Corridors Some of the region’s most ambitious projects involve countries previously viewed primarily through the lens of conflict. Terrestrial systems, like that proposed via Syria, can support up to 144 fiber pairs compared to the 24 typical in today’s subsea cables, meaning the capacity potential is enormous. The downside is they’re above ground, making them much more vulnerable to physical disruptions. This is not an abstract risk.