Telecom Egypt and Jordan’s NaiTel have announced the completion of Coral Bridge, a 15-kilometre subsea cable that connects Taba in Egypt with Aqaba in Jordan across the Gulf of Aqaba. This development marks the first direct digital link between the two nations in more than 25 years and adds a significant route to regional and international network resilience. The new system is designed with 48 fibre pairs capable of carrying over a petabit of traffic, a capacity expected to support rapid growth in cloud services, AI applications, and digital platforms across the Middle East at lower costs and with greater efficiency.
On the Egyptian side, Coral Bridge lands at Telecom Egypt’s newly established Taba station, part of an infrastructure expansion in Sinai that positions the country as a critical hub for regional connectivity. In Jordan, the system connects to Aqaba Digital Hub’s Tier III carrier-neutral data facility, which offers hyperscalers and enterprises improved options for redundancy, backup, and recovery. By tying into these key sites, the system provides businesses across both countries with an opportunity to tap into advanced digital services while also contributing to national strategies that emphasise digital transformation.
Executives from both companies have highlighted the wider strategic value of the project. Eyad Abu Khorma, CEO of Aqaba Digital Hub, described Coral Bridge as a “strategic asset” that strengthens Jordan’s access to regional and global markets while supporting one of the largest data centres in MENA. Mohamed Nasr, CEO of Telecom Egypt, stated that the new system is designed to aggregate traffic from across the region and feed it into Egypt’s diverse network routes that extend to the Mediterranean, offering greater resilience and efficiency for regional and global data flows.
The launch of Coral Bridge comes during a surge of subsea cable activity around Africa and the Middle East. Projects such as Google’s Equiano and Umoja, Meta’s 2Africa initiative, and the Asia-Africa-Europe-2 (AAE-2) system are transforming the continent into a focal point for global internet infrastructure. Within this environment, Coral Bridge is set to provide Egypt and Jordan with a direct corridor that not only enhances their own connectivity but also contributes to the stability of broader international networks. For both operators, the investment represents more than infrastructure; it reinforces their ambition to play a central role in shaping the future of digital services across Africa, Asia, and Europe.
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