Layer Beneath the AI Headlines

You cannot get away from it every conversation in the GCC business market is about AI but I’ve noticed fewer people asking deeper about what keeps it all running.

The numbers are eye watering. Microsoft has committed $15.2 billion to UAE infrastructure through 2029. Saudi Arabia’s Humain programme, backed by STC, is targeting 1GW of AI-focused data centre capacity. e& has 160 machine learning models running in production and is building toward 6G by 2030. The Gulf is moving fast on AI, and the investment is substantial.

What gets less attention is the connectivity layer that this depends on.

The GCC sits in a geography that has delivered some hard lessons recently. In September 2025, four submarine cables in the Red Sea were severed, causing widespread internet disruption across the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, and Pakistan. These are not isolated incidents. In February 2024, three cables were damaged after a Houthi attack on a commercial vessel, and repairs took six full months. For a region positioning itself as a global AI hub, that degree of exposure in a single corridor is worth taking seriously.

The response from the UAE and KSA has been measured and substantive.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE are financing overland data corridors through Iraq and East Africa, with six competing projects under development to give the region an alternative if subsea cables face disruption again. Saudi Arabia is committing $800 million to the SilkLink fibre network, while Qatar is putting $500 million into the FIG project. The Fiber-in-Gulf system, linking Qatar, Oman, UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq, has been designed specifically as a sovereignty and resilience play, reducing dependence on external routing nodes and supporting intra-GCC data flows directly.

So here is the techie stuff – Alongside the overland work, something significant is happening with satellite connectivity.

Starlink launched commercially in the UAE in March 2026, giving residents and businesses an LEO-based broadband option at ground level for the first time. The UAE also partnered with Starlink in February 2026 on a digital education initiative targeting 100 remote schools, which signals intent to embed LEO connectivity into national infrastructure rather than treat it as a consumer add-on.

In Saudi Arabia, the commercial commitment goes further. STC has signed a 10-year, $175 million agreement with LEO operator AST SpaceMobile to deploy direct-to-device satellite broadband across Saudi Arabia and select markets in the Middle East and Africa, with commercial launch targeted for Q4 2026. In the UAE, Space42 has signed an MoU with e& to offer direct-to-device satellite services through its Equatys joint venture with Viasat.

LEO satellite is relevant here for a specific reason. Its latency characteristics make it viable for enterprise and AI workloads in a way that older satellite technology never was. It will not replace fibre, but as a resilience layer sitting alongside terrestrial infrastructure it is increasingly credible, and operators in the GCC are treating it that way.

So its in the sea, its along the land, its in silicon on the desert and its low earth orbit.

Taken together, the region is building connectivity infrastructure with redundancy built in from the start: overland fibre routes, intra-GCC cable loops, LEO satellite agreements, and a data centre base expanding at pace.

The AI investment message across the GCC is well-founded. The work now underway to strengthen the connectivity layer beneath it deserves to be part of that story, because without it the rest does not scale in the way the AI headline numbers suggest it should.

Craig Ashmole, Founder of Straightalking Consulting, Dubai UAE