An Iraqi-Emirati consortium is preparing to invest $700 million in a new subsea and terrestrial data cable that will link the United Arab Emirates to Turkey through Iraq. The initiative, branded WorldLink, comes just over a week after Saudi Arabia announced a separate Saudi-backed fiber-optic project in Syria, underscoring intensifying regional competition to dominate digital infrastructure and AI-driven connectivity.
The proposed WorldLink system will begin with an undersea cable stretching from the UAE to Iraq’s Faw peninsula along the Gulf. From there, the network will extend overland across Iraq, heading north to the Turkish border. Ali El Akabi, head of Iraq’s Tech 964 and one of the three consortium partners.
According to El Akabi, the project will be privately financed and implemented in phases over the next five years. The route is designed to ease congestion and shorten transit times compared to traditional data pathways that run through the Suez Canal, offering an alternative corridor for digital traffic between Asia and Europe.
The broader push reflects how Gulf nations are positioning themselves to capture surging demand for connectivity and AI infrastructure, including large-scale data centers. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in particular, are competing to establish themselves as regional hubs for next-generation digital infrastructure, amid ongoing economic diversification efforts and geopolitical rivalry.
The Emirati and Saudi governments did not respond to requests for comment regarding the WorldLink initiative.
Earlier, on Feb. 7, Saudi Arabia and Syria announced plans to establish a fiber-optic network under a broader investment framework. That initiative, known as SilkLink, represents a roughly $1 billion effort to rehabilitate Syria’s infrastructure and reposition it as a strategic data transit route between Asia and Europe.
Responding to inquiries about the Iraqi-UAE cable project, the Syrian telecoms ministry said in a statement: “Additional infrastructure investment improves route diversity and resilience for everyone.”
“SilkLink is designed to deliver low-latency and high- availability … and we expect to be highly competitive on both performance and resilience,” the statement added.
WorldLink’s backers include Tech 964, Iraq-Kurdish DIL Technologies, and UAE-based Breeze Investments. The consortium says the new cable is being designed with AI-driven demands in mind.
“AI infrastructure readiness is a necessity as we witness its adoption worldwide,” said Nayef Al Ameri, chairman of Breeze Investments, in a statement. “WorldLink is designed to deliver the fastest and most reliable connectivity in the region serving these needs.”
For Iraq, the initiative aligns with broader ambitions to rebrand itself as a stable and efficient transit corridor after decades of conflict. In 2023, the country launched a $17 billion “Development Road” project — a rail-and-road corridor intended to connect the Faw peninsula to Turkey — reinforcing its goal of becoming a key gateway linking Gulf markets with Europe.
