UAE-Iraqi consortium plans $700 million WorldLink data cable

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UAE-Iraqi consortium plans $700 million WorldLink data cable on AI boom

February 17, 2026

DUBAI,— A consortium from Iraq and the United Arab Emirates is preparing a 700 million dollar subsea and land based data cable linking the UAE to Turkey through Iraq, one of the project’s backers told Reuters.

The plan comes just over a week after a Saudi backed fiber optic project was announced in Syria.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two Gulf neighbors, are both seeking to benefit from growing demand for digital connectivity across the region.

The countries are aiming to position themselves as centers for artificial intelligence infrastructure, including data centers, as part of broader economic and geopolitical competition.

The Iraqi Emirati project, known as WorldLink, would start with an undersea cable running from the UAE to Iraq’s Faw peninsula on the Gulf.

From there, the cable would extend over land northward to the Turkish border, Ali El Akabi, head of Iraq’s Tech 964, told Reuters. Tech 964 is one of three members of the consortium behind the project.

El Akabi said the cable system would be financed by private investors and developed in stages over a five year program. The goal is to ease network congestion and cut transit times compared with traditional routes that pass through the Suez Canal.

The governments of the UAE and Saudi Arabia did not respond to requests for comment.

On February 7, Saudi Arabia and Syria announced plans to establish a fiber optic network as part of a broader investment package.

The project, called SilkLink, is valued at about 1 billion dollars and aims to rebuild Syria’s infrastructure and position the country as a digital corridor between Asia and Europe.

In response to a Reuters request for comment on the UAE Iraqi initiative, the Syrian telecoms ministry said in a statement that additional infrastructure investment increases route diversity and resilience for all parties.

“SilkLink is designed to deliver low latency and high availability, and we expect to be highly competitive on both performance and resilience,” the ministry said.

In addition to Tech 964, the WorldLink consortium includes Iraq Kurdish DIL Technologies and UAE based Breeze Investments.

“Preparing infrastructure for artificial intelligence is essential as its use expands around the world,” Nayef Al Ameri, chairman of Breeze Investments, said in a statement.

He added that WorldLink is designed to provide the fastest and most reliable connectivity in the region to meet those needs.

Iraq has been working to promote itself as a stable transit corridor after decades of conflict. In 2023, it launched a 17 billion dollar Development Road project, a rail and road plan intended to connect Faw with Turkey.

(With files from Reuters)