admin Undoubtedly, the Suez Canal is one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints.
Around 30 percent of total global container trade passes through the Canal, while each year, more than USD one trillion worth of goods pass through the narrow stretch of water connecting Asia and Europe.
For Egypt, the Canal provides a vital source of foreign currency. According to the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), the waterway generated USD 40 billion in revenue from 2019 to 2024.
For the 2025/2026 financial year, the SCA recently announced that revenues increased by 23 percent in relation to the previous year, despite significant regional disruption.
Yet the Suez Canal is not just a maritime chokepoint. It is also a vital chokepoint of international communications, linking multiple continents via a congested highway of undersea telecommunication cables.
It is these cables that provide Egypt with an invaluable opportunity to both enhance global communications, while expanding its economy. Buried beneath the world’s oceans, this network of undersea cables connects every continent except Antarctica, enabling individuals, businesses, and governments to communicate with each other.
These cables are vital. According to the UN’s International Telecommunication Union, as the foundation of the global internet, these cables account for 99 percent of global internet traffic, including countless financial transactions.
In Egypt alone, six such cables run the length of the Suez Canal, connecting Africa, Europe and Asia. One of these, IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe), runs for 12,091 kilometres, bridging a host of different countries from Mumbai to Marseille.
Powering global communication is not new to the Suez Canal. In 1870, just one year after the passage’s inauguration, the British-run Submarine Telegraph Company laid the first telegraph cable under the waterway. This cable connected Suez with Mumbai, then a key hub in Britain’s colonial trading network.
Currently, Egypt’s undersea cables are controlled by Telecom Egypt (TE). Currently, TE manages the operation of 14 undersea telecommunication cables, overseeing the planning, building, and maintenance of existing and new projects in Egypt.
The demand for new projects is abundant. In 2022, TE signed a deal with the Irish company, Medusa Submarine Cable System, to extend the existing Medusa cable to Egypt by 2026, connecting Egypt with several Mediterranean cities.
TE are also involved in the development of the Africa-1 cable, planned to connect Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, stretching over 10,000 kilometres.
For Egypt, these undersea cables present an exciting opportunity. According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Egypt’s ICT sector has been the fastest growing sector in the country for six consecutive years. The sector has also benefited from rising foreign investment (FDI). Egypt attracted USD 46.1 billion in FDI during the 2023/24 financial year, providing additional capital for digital infrastructure and technology projects.
Under the government’s Digital Egypt Strategy, Egypt has further enhanced its digital and communications growth. Part of Egypt Vision 2030, the strategy promotes the development of national talent and investment incentives, including the use of special economic zones.
In conjunction with Egypt’s rapidly growing ICT sector, further development of the country’s existing undersea cable network could significantly accelerate economic growth.
As countries the world over scramble to produce and advance new Artificial Intelligence systems, the importance of the global telecommunications cable network grows rapidly.
In the Middle East alone, AI development has become an increasingly important component of governments’ economic strategies. In the Gulf, AI presents an opportunity for governments to diversify their traditional dependency on oil.
Established in 2025, the Saudi Public Investment Fund has pumped over a billion dollars into its AI system, HUMAIN. G42, a Dubai-based AI company, recently raised millions of dollars from investors, and is actively investing in other AI firms around the world.
Reliant on the rapid transfer of information, these AI ecosystems rely on the rapid movement of vast quantities of data, making Egypt’s position as a bridge between Europe, Africa, and Asia increasingly valuable. Accordingly, Gulf states are investing in Egypt.
Run by the Saudi telecommunications company, Mobily, Egypt and Saudi Arabia agreed in 2022 to build a new cable bridging the two countries, enhancing Egypt’s foreign direct investment income.
Yet opportunities for growth reach far beyond the Middle East. Some of the world’s largest technology companies have invested in Egypt’s undersea cable infrastructure, companies such as Google, Meta, and Amazon.
Investors are not exclusively American. Other international companies such as the Indian Tata Communications and Chinese companies Huawei and China Mobile International have also financed Egypt’s undersea cable network.
Throughout its history, Egypt has bridged continents, cultures, and civilisations. The advancement of modern technology this century has not changed this, instead altering the ways in which Egypt interacts with the world.
Still, Egypt fuses Europe and the Arab World, the Arab World and Africa, Africa and Europe. Undersea telecommunication cables now enable this fusion, bringing the worlds surrounding Egypt together.
As in the past, these connections provide a wealth of opportunity. With the ascendance of AI to necessity across the world, Egypt remains wonderfully placed to facilitate this ascendence, growing Egypt’s economy.
