Ooredoo and du partner to land FIG subsea cable in UAE, boosting GCC capacity

Ooredoo Group has partnered with du to land the Fibre in the Gulf subsea cable system in the UAE, a high-capacity platform designed to deliver up to 720 Tbps across 24 fibre pairs. The system will connect Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Oman, serving hyperscalers, cloud providers, and AI platforms.

Ooredoo Group has announced a partnership with du to land the Fibre in the Gulf (FIG) subsea cable system in the UAE, marking further progress in developing a high-capacity international connectivity platform to support the region's growing data and digital infrastructure requirements, according to an official announcement. FIG is the largest subsea cable system ever built in the GCC, designed to deliver unprecedented capacity of up to 720 Tbps across 24 fibre pairs.

Ooredoo is a telecommunications company operating across the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. du is a UAE-based telecommunications provider. The system is being developed to meet sustained demand from hyperscalers, cloud providers, AI platforms, and data centre operators, enabling efficient, low-latency data flows across Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Oman. The project is led by Ooredoo Fibre Networks, a recently established independent entity created to manage and scale Ooredoo Group's international connectivity and subsea infrastructure investments.

This development matters for the Gulf's digital infrastructure sector, where subsea cable capacity is critical for regional and intercontinental connectivity between the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. The UAE landing at du's cable station adds further depth to the system's architecture, supporting more diversified data routing and strengthening overall efficiency.

For the telecommunications industry, the FIG system represents a strategic investment in high-capacity connectivity to accommodate exponential data growth driven by AI and cloud adoption. Stakeholders including hyperscalers, cloud providers, and data centre operators stand to benefit from low-latency data flows across the region.