Saudi Arabian telecom STC Group has won its bid to run Syria’s ‘Silklink’ project.  The scheme will see STC Group acquire a 75 percent stake in the project for three billion SAR ($800 million), which aims to build a 4,500 km (2,796 mile) fiber-optic cable network, as well as several data centers and submarine cable landing stations in Syria.  The deal marks the first major foreign direct investment into the reconstruction of the country’s telecoms network, which was partially destroyed during its 15-year civil war.  “The project provides high data transfer capacities and greater reliability, enabling telecom operators in Syria and the region to offer advanced communication services, and support digital applications, cloud services, and the Internet of Things, in addition to improving internet quality and raising the efficiency of the digital infrastructure within Syria,” STC Group said in a statement.  Syria’s communications minister Abdulsalam Haykal said separately that the scheme would take place in two phases over the next 18 months to two years. DCD has reached out to STC Group for comment.  Named after the historical ‘Silk Road,’ a collection of trade routes that linked Europe and Asia during the medieval period, the Silklink project forms part of the provisional Syrian government’s wider attempt to rebuild the country’s economy after its civil war.  In a statement on X in May 2025, Minister Haykal said that the project also included plans for regional switching centers near the ancient city of Palmyra, upgrades to its 30-year-old submarine cable, and regional connection points with Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey to facilitate a new communications route with Europe.  STC Group’s winning bid follows a competitive tender process that attracted several high-profile telecoms companies in the region, including Etisalat and Ooredoo, and comes as part of a wider set of economic agreements between Riyadh and Damascus estimated to be worth $2 billion.  It’s also the latest in a series of major deals struck by the telecommunications firm, including a colocation agreement between its data center arm and the Saudi ICT company Sahara Net and the acquisition of a 9.9 percent stake in the Spanish Telefonica in 2024. Last year, the division said that it was targeting at least 1GW of compute capacity by the end of this decade as part of a $10 billion investment plan. (ICE BEIRUT)

Fonte notizia: datacenterdynamics.com