Business · Rest of World
Cloud providers increasingly want to buy raw fiber strands on this route, known in the industry as dark fiber
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IQ Networks maintains the physical cable but cannot see what travels through it.
Key facts
- IQ Networks’ route, called the Silk Route Transit, has been running since November 2023
- The data centers serve customers in more than 190 countries, processing transactions, storing files, and running applications for businesses and individuals from Latin America to South Asia
- IQ Networks began building the route in 2010 as an alternative to the submarine cables that carry almost all Gulf data to Europe
- Hyperscalers” is the industry term for the companies — led by Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — which run data centers in almost 40 countries
Summary
When drones hit Amazon’s Gulf data centers in March, banking and payment apps went down. An Iraqi telecom built a fiber route alongside oil pipelines that has become the working alternative. The company is extending the route into the European network that connects back to U.S. users. Major U.S. hyperscalers running data centers in the Gulf to power apps and online services for millions of users are channeling data out of the war zone through fiber-optic cables that an Iraqi telecom has strung alongside crude-oil pipelines. “Most if not all the hyperscalers” have bought capacity on the Iraqi route, Martin Frank, strategic adviser at IQ Networks, the company that built the network, told Rest of World.