Ooredoo Group and du have announced a strategic partnership to land the Fibre in the Gulf (FIG) subsea cable system in the United Arab Emirates, marking a major step toward strengthening regional and international digital connectivity infrastructure.
The FIG project is described as the largest subsea cable system ever developed in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with a designed capacity of up to 720Tbps across 24 fibre pairs.
The system is expected to support rising demand from hyperscalers, cloud computing providers, artificial intelligence platforms, and data centre operators across the Middle East.
According to the companies, the cable network will deliver high-capacity, low-latency connectivity linking Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Oman.
The initiative is being spearheaded by Ooredoo Fibre Networks (OFN), a newly established independent entity responsible for managing and expanding Ooredoo Group’s international connectivity and subsea infrastructure investments.
The UAE landing point will be hosted at du’s cable station, a move expected to strengthen regional routing diversity and improve intercontinental data exchange between the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.
Group CEO of Ooredoo, Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, said the FIG system reflects the company’s commitment to building resilient, high-capacity infrastructure capable of meeting evolving digital demand across the region.
He noted that the partnership with du represents another milestone in the execution of the project and reinforces the strategic importance of international connectivity in supporting long-term digital growth.
Meanwhile, CEO of du, Fahad Al Hassawi, said the deployment strengthens the UAE’s position as a global hub for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and digital services.
According to him, the collaboration will provide the scale, resilience, and performance needed to support hyperscalers, enterprises, and digital ecosystems as demand for advanced connectivity accelerates.
The FIG cable system is also expected to improve route diversity and redundancy, ensuring more reliable international data flows and reducing the risk of service disruptions.
Industry analysts say the project could play a critical role in the next phase of digital infrastructure expansion across the Gulf region, particularly as investments in AI, cloud computing, and smart technologies continue to grow rapidly.
