Greece and Saudi Arabia agreed on the key terms of a joint venture to build the “East to Med data Corridor“ (EMC) project, a submarine and terrestrial cable connecting Europe to Asia. The EMC project will be developed by MENA HUB, owned by STC of Saudi Arabia and the Greek Telecommunication Telephony Satellite Applications (TTSA). The Public Power Corporation of Greece (PPC) and the telecommunications provider of Cyprus CYTA will also have a share in the project.
MENA HUB, TTSA, PPC and CYTA signed the Shareholders' Agreement in Athens on Tuesday, in the presence of His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and His Excellency, the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
As a huge increase in data connectivity from Europe to Asia via Saudi Arabia, the joint venture between Saudi Arabia and Greece will lead to the installation of a data transfer cable between Greece as the Eastern Data Portal of the European Union and Saudi Arabia as the Regional Digital Hub between Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
MENA Hub, the international connectivity and data centers arm of stc, will build the EMC cable infrastructure in partnership with Greek telecoms and satellite applications company TTSA.
The EMC project enables the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Greece, and Cyprus, to take advantage of their geographic position, delivering the much-needed new data corridor for the world economy, positioning the countries at the epicentre of transferring, storing, and creating data in Eurasia, by creating a digital connectivity infrastructure between the countries, which is the cornerstone of the digital transformation era.
The EMC cable has been designed from its inception to realise KSA’s Vision 2030 and the Greece 2.0 Plan by transforming the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into a “Regional Digital Hub”, and positioning Greece and Cyprus as “European Union’s East Data Gateway”, between Europe and the Middle East, Africa, and Asia
According to CYTA, the EMC will start from Singapore and pass through Saudi Arabia, Israel, Cyprus and Greece, ending in Italy and France. Construction will start in autumn and should be ready and in operation at the end of 2025 at a total cost of $850million.