Gulf Artificial Intelligence ambition rests on something surprisingly tender: a few undersea cables running through the most unstable waterways in the world.
Countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have spent billions building artificial intelligence infrastructure, attracting hyperscalers and positioning themselves as future exporters of computing power. But as the region shifts from oil riches to AI-driven economies, the infrastructure carrying this data is increasingly becoming a strategic weakness.
Undersea cables have long powered the global Internet. Now they are becoming geopolitical assets.
Following the escalation of the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran earlier this year, experts warned that the regional conflict could threaten critical cable infrastructure in the Persian Gulf. In May, media reports claimed Iran was considering taking control all seven submarine cables running through the Strait of Hormuz.
Undersea cables carry an estimate 95 percent of all international data traffic. In the case of the Persian Gulf, concentration is an issue: much of the region’s connections with Europe and the US still depend on just a few routes through the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.
The Middle East lies at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, making the region one of the most strategically crucial transit zones in the world for global internet traffic.
Nowadays, a damaged cable can do much more than just snail-paced down the Internet. This could undermine the entire emerging AI business model in the Gulf.
In many ways, Gulf countries are trying to turn energy wealth into artificial intelligence infrastructure, exporting computing power and cloud capacity in much the same way they once exported hydrocarbons.
As economies in the Middle East prepare to become large-scale exporters of computing power, the importance of and reliance on these cables is growing, not least because hyperscale companies starting operations in the region require more resilience than ever.
Unlike classic internet traffic, AI infrastructure relies on massive and continuous data flows between hyperscale data centers, cloud service providers and enterprise customers. Even brief disruptions can cause significant operational and financial consequences, making resilient fiber infrastructure a commercial necessity rather than a luxury.
“Hyperscale companies and regional carriers are pushing to diversify as their demands go beyond capacity. They now need multiple independent paths, predictable delays and resilience in the face of geopolitical tensions,” says Imad Atwi, partner at consulting firm Strategy& Middle East.
Artificial intelligence is forcing the Persian Gulf to rethink connectivity
The pressure is rising. In 2025 two connecting cables Europe, the Middle East and Asia were disrupted in the Red Sea, degrading internet connectivity in the Persian Gulf for several days and causing an estimated $3.5 billion in lost service damage.
This incident occurred before AI adoption began to gain momentum and data centers came online. Today, hyperscalers are demanding the same standards of resiliency in the Middle East that they already rely on on transatlantic and transpacific routes. These markets typically operate on four or five physically separate network paths to minimize the risk of disruption.
In comparison, the Bay Area is still largely dependent on a narrow concentration of routes.
“Hyperscale companies now want a similar route diversity in the Middle East, both for Gulf-Europe connections and Europe-Asia traffic in the region,” says Bertrand Clesca, partner at Pioneer Consulting, a specialist in submarine cables.
Over the years, proposed land and undersea routes through the Middle East have struggled to come to fruition due to regulatory barriers, political instability and regional conflict.
Many of these corridors are now being recognized again as critical digital infrastructure.
Atwi describes the multi-layered strategy emerging in the Persian Gulf. The first layer includes landing stations in the Persian Gulf, connected by terrestrial fiber-optic corridors covering Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, then extending towards Europe and Asia through Jordan and the Levant. The second layer would introduce recent subsea-land systems that bypass the bottlenecks around Egypt and Bab el-Mandeb. The third would create northern land corridors through Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
Novel strategic Internet corridors
Some of the most ambitious projects in the region involve countries previously viewed primarily through the prism of conflict.
Terrestrial systems such as the one proposed by Syria can support up to 144 fiber pairs compared to the 24 typical of newfangled submarine cables, meaning the bandwidth potential is enormous. The disadvantage is that they are above the ground, which makes them much more susceptible to physical disturbances. This is not an abstract risk.