FiberConnect APAC 2026: Fiber and AI intertwined, powering next-gen connectivity

As AI becomes central to digital economies, the importance of fiber infrastructure has grown. Fiber networks are not only supporting traditional connectivity needs but are now powering the next generation of AI-driven applications, data centers, and national strategies across Asia Pacific and the Middle East & North Africa. The FiberConnect APAC 2026 conference, organized by the Fiber Network Council Asia-Pacific and held Oct. 14-15 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, brought together the regulators, telco leaders, and technology innovators to understand the transformative convergence of fiber and AI.

“So, when people ask me what the AI economy runs on, my answer is simple. No fiber, no AI." The connection between fiber optic infrastructure and AI has become inseparable, according to Kholoud AlDorgham, Director General of FiberConnect Council MENA, who emphasized that without robust fiber networks, AI ambitions cannot be realized. AlDorgham outlined how the telecom landscape in MENA is shifting from connecting people to connecting intelligence.

“MENA (Middle East & North Africa) is investing heavily in AI, cloud, data centers, 5G, and sovereign digital infrastructure. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and others are positioning themselves as global AI hubs.” As she mentioned, the region currently has approximately three gigawatts of data center capacity, expected to double to six gigawatts by 2030. However, individual projects alone exceed these figures. The UAE AI campus in Abu Dhabi is planned at five gigawatts, while Stargate UAE is developing a one-gigawatt AI cluster, with its first 200 megawatts coming online this year. Saudi Arabia's targets include 1.9 gigawatts by 2030 and 6.6 gigawatts by 2034.

“We are moving from fiber-to-the-home to fiber to data center, to fiber between AI factories.” AlDorgham explained that every AI ambition creates physical infrastructure requirements that depend on fiber connectivity. AI data centers require more than ten times the optical fiber of traditional data centers, creating massive demand beyond traditional applications like fiber-to-the-home, mobile backhaul, and enterprise connectivity.

“MENA is between Europe, Asia, and Africa. That geography is one of our greatest assets. But geography also creates exposure.” MENA region's geography represents both opportunity and vulnerability: about 15 major submarine cables pass through the Red Sea, and cable cuts in 2024 disrupted around a quarter of data traffic between Asia and Europe. Multiple cable cut incidents between February 2024 and September 2025 demonstrated the critical need for diversity, resilience, and redundant interconnection routes.

“For years, we asked, 'How much fiber do we need?' Today, the right question is, 'How much AI does our fiber infrastructure allow us to build?'” The infrastructure challenge points to opportunities for fiber operators beyond traditional broadband, including data center interconnection, dark fiber, high-capacity metro networks, cloud connectivity, edge computing facilities, and submarine corridors built for density and resilience. As fiber becomes essential to AI, it also becomes strategic infrastructure, prompting governments and boards to ask new questions about location, resilience, control, diversity, and operational continuity during disruptions.

AlDorgham concluded, “AI may be the brain. Data centers may be the factories. But fiber is the nervous system, connecting everything together. And the brain, without the nervous system, cannot act. And an AI without fiber cannot scale." Fiber no longer simply responds to demand but sets the ceiling for what AI strategies can achieve, making fiber strategy inseparable from AI strategy in the digital economy.

“And this isn't just about connectivity anymore. Governments across the region are now positioning telcos as foundational enablers of national AI ecosystems.” Through government mandates and massive infrastructure investments, telcos across the Asia-Pacific region are transforming from connectivity providers to essential enablers of national AI ecosystems, said Fed Mendoza, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan Associate Research Analyst. Mendoza presented findings from a special research report conducted across 22 Asia-Pacific markets by S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan, in collaboration with the Fiber Network Council Asia-Pacific (FNCAP). Key findings presented at FNCAP's FiberConnect 2026 included insights into government regulations and national AI strategies, AI infrastructure bottlenecks, telco-hyperscaler partnerships, AI-native operations (strategies, the presence of AI data centers, and agentic AI), and fiber investments and modernization for AI.

Mendoza concluded in his Asia-Pacific special research report that “As AI workloads are projected to drive long-haul fiber demand and data centers across the region are set to increase in capacity, the initiatives APAC telecoms are making today will define the region's digital landscape in the long term. S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan projects fiber broadband revenues and ARPU will display a modest compound annual growth rate by 2032.”

Clients can access the full report on AI-driven Telco Infrastructure in the APAC Market, sliced into chapters with spreadsheets of consolidated information about the research.

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This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.