stc Group said that it intends to establish an advanced technology business, which is expected to form a premier digital hub for the MENA region, in order to achieve the objectives of “dare strategy 2.0” to enable digital transformation in various sectors aligning with Vision 2030.
The pace of transformation in the digital economy has accelerated dramatically during the current global pandemic. Everyone and everything is more interconnected. How efficiently and quickly we are able to connect to customers, suppliers, colleagues, and partners across the world will determine how productive we are and how fast we can innovate.
‘STC is stepping up to support its clients as they face this transformation challenge and is pleased to announce its commitment to creating the premier digital hub for the MENA region. we will bring together both the considerable assets we already have, those which are currently under construction, and our future planned investments to further boost hosting and interconnection capacities. This will ensure that we create in Saudi Arabia the natural home for the Mena region’s digital ecosystem, building on our strategic location at the intersection of three continents’, said STC Group CEO, Nasser Suleiman Al Nasser.
Existing assets, which STC will bring to this initiative, include its extensive international submarine cable network, which already offers the highest availability to Europe from the GCC today. This is achieved through STCs investment in a state of the art optical mesh linking multiple high capacity cables, which ensures continuous service availability in the event of any cable outages. STC lands submarine cables both in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Gulf and consequently is able to offer low latency to Europe from the Red Sea, and from the Gulf, by also leveraging our terrestrial cross border network. STC’s optical cross border network connects to all of our neighboring countries, and so we can offer faster connectivity to customers in many countries than they can achieve through the submarine cables landing there.
A number of next-generation multi-terabit cables are currently in the planning stages to meet the very high cloud and content demands predicted in the future, and the first of those to come to the region will land with STC.
‘STC is a primary investor partner of the 2Africa submarine cable project, which will deliver very high capacity interconnectivity between three continents. STC will land this submarine cable in the Red Sea, and we are additionally investing in extending that cable into the Gulf, where we will land in multiple countries. STC has further committed to building The Saudi Vision Cable, which will facilitate multi-terabit connection to the North West region of Saudi Arabia, in support of the KIngdom’s ambitious plans for Neom, and onwards to Jordan. These significant developments will totally transform the landscape and set the standard for high capacity connectivity in the region,’ according to Al Nasser.
STC also intends to leverage its Data Centre estate. With eight Data Centers operating today, STC already has the largest estate in the region. One of these, Mena Gateway, is home to JedIx, the fully redundant internet traffic exchange platform launched last year, which is another key existing asset for our interconnection hub. Five more Data Centres are currently under construction in multiple countries in the region, and STC will continue to invest in expanding its footprint where necessary to better serve customers across the region.
‘Saudi Arabia is the natural home for the region’s digital hub. We have an enviable combination of infrastructure assets today. We are building more right now, and we will continue to invest to ensure we meet future demands. In Saudi Arabia, we have the largest population in the GCC to exploit the innovative digital services which make the country their home. We have a young and highly educated workforce. STC is committed to working with government, partners, and other regional and international stakeholders to ensure that customers get the maximum benefit from the digital hub we are building for the region’, Al Nasser added.
‘The Kingdom’s Vision 2030 plan is a clear statement of intent that Saudi Arabia will become a hub connecting three continents for multiple industries. Central to achieving that aim will be the world-class digital eco-system, which facilitates it. STC is proud to announce our plans and commitment to turning that vision into reality,’ Al Nasser concluded.
