Europe’s largest enterprise fibre provider will scale infrastructure and partner-led operations across the Middle East, positioning itself as a regional gateway – whilst also divesting non-AI data centres in Europe to double down on asset-led digital infra.
In sum – what to know:
Regional scale-up – Colt will expand across Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf via a mix of direct infrastructure and partner-enabled models.
Infra-first strategy – The firm presents itself as a connectivity gateway, with new subsea capacity and low-latency cloud on-ramps, while quitting “non-AI” data centres.
AI-ready network – Inference workloads will favour its metro fibre and enterprise footprint, plus its pan-European backhaul network and NAS capabilities.
UK-based fibre infrastructure provider Colt Technology Services is to ramp up its operations and infrastructure in the Middle East, including in Turkey and Dubai, where it already works, and also with local operators in Saudi Arabia, and via partners in “additional regions” of the UAE, plus in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman. In Saudi Arabia, it will partner to “enable solutions connected to its own infrastructure”, it said; it will otherwise expand via “partner-enabled” models in new territories. It noted the busy data-centre buildout in the Middle East, and rising demand for cloud and AI services to drive digital change song enterprises, particularly core customers in the financial services industry.
It stated: “The area [is] emerging as a significant growth engine. Colt’s customers with existing operations in the area are scaling rapidly. New entrants are also turning to Colt as they establish their own regional presence, while organisations in the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific are extending and deepening their connections into the region.” Colt, the biggest enterprise fibre provider in Europe, talked in a press note about an unspecified investment to “reinforce its position as gateway into the region”. The firm has recently completed the sale of six data centres in Europe to Dutch firm NorthC, plus two in London to an unnamed UK data centre business.
The mainland facilities are in Amsterdam, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Munich. Both buyers are managed, in majority or in part, by German asset management firm DWS Group. They were acquired by Colt in 2023 with the purchase of European longhaul fibre assets from US-firm Lumen – which has since retrenched to focus on the US market. In conversation at PTC in Hawaii last month, Colt explained the divestment to NorthC et al involves “non-AI” data centres, and that its focus is on “digital infrastructure” instead. Sister company Colt Data Center Services only works with large-sized hyperscaler campuses, it noted.
More strategically, the company’s new work in the Middle East is billed as “ambitious”, and will see the firm “scale even further”. It is promising “enhanced Ethernet, direct connections to cloud providers, and low latency services to enterprises and data centres with operations in the Middle East. The firm has leased capacity on three subsea cable systems connecting Europe and Asia with the Middle East. These include fibre pairs on the Europe India Gateway (EIG; 15,000 kilometres, connecting Europe to the Middle East and India), FALCON (15,000 kilometres, connecting Europe to the Middle East and India), and HAWK (extending FALCON from India into Europe) systems.
Hyperscalers are investing in gigawatt campuses and joint ventures in the region, the firm noted, “taking advantage of lower power costs and a favourable regulatory and planning environment”. It quoted a GDP forecast, that growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries will be 4.4 percent in 2026, outrunning global rates. Keri Gilder, chief executive at Colt, called the region “a land of extraordinary opportunity”, which is “setting the pace for the next era of AI-powered innovation”. She stated: “Colt already has exceptional people, deep regional expertise, and robust infrastructure in key Middle Eastern markets – and we have ambitious, exciting plans to scale even further.”
In conversation with RCR at PTC, Colt made its case as an asset-led infrastructure provider, rooted in a strategy around the scale and control of its network. Its origins as City of London Telecom, combined with its 2023 acquisition of Lumen’s assets in the EMEA region, afford it a pan-European fibre footprint, combining its original and expanded European footprint of metro fibre hubs and enterprise buildings – notably in London, Frankfurt, and Berlin, it said – with pan-European longhaul fibre routes from Lumen, plus legacy subsea cables and landing stations, including along the US east coast, and rented fibre pairs on new hyperscaler systems. The firm owns 15,000 kilometres of fibre, 32,000 enterprise buildings, and 2 cable landing stations, and manages eight subsea systems.
The firm has reorganised internally around three interlinked “engines”: infrastructure, digitisation, and solutions. These reflect a shift in its focus and go-to-market approach, with infrastructure as the base layer, automation and APIs in the middle, and enterprise solutions on top. Digitisation is positioned as essential in a market where traditional telco procurement is “quite archaic,” reliant on manual processes that “doesn’t lend itself to a NAS offering.” The firm reckons its NAS capabilities, delivering dynamic control of routing and quality-of-service, as supported in its IQ platform, are ahead of its competitors’ – and also of most enterprises’ buying behaviours, as it stands. There is work to do on APIs in the broader ecosystem, and with enterprises as they look to direct AI traffic.
Like Colt, and everyone at PTC, the whole fibre community is animated by the rising demands placed on their systems by developing AI workloads. In conversation, Colt suggested coming inference workloads aligns well with its infrastructure and services proposition. AI inference workloads will increasingly need to be processed close to where the data is generated (“it’s not all going back to the data centre; it’s going to be served locally”), particularly in metro environments – where Colt has a fibre stronghold in Europe. “Suddenly you’re talking about latency, high fibre counts, small data centers – essentially, in those metro environments.”
