Feb, 2026 : $700M UAE-Iraq Cable Targets AI Connectivity Boom
📅 - A $700 million cross-border cable project backed by Iraqi and Emirati investors is taking shape as Gulf states intensify their push to position themselves at the center of global AI and digital infrastructure flows. Confirmed by consortium partners in comments to Reuters, the initiative - known as WorldLink - aims to connect the United Arab Emirates to Turkey via Iraq through a combination of subsea and terrestrial fiber routes.
The timing underscores a broader regional race to attract hyperscale data center investment and AI-driven connectivity demand. Just days earlier, Saudi Arabia unveiled a separate fiber initiative in Syria valued at nearly $1 billion. Together, the announcements [...][... Check source for end of article ...]
📅 - JLL: Texas to Surpass Virginia as Largest Data Center Market - North America's data center market has hit a structural inflection point, with vacancy holding at a record-low 1% for a second consecutive year and Texas emerging as the likely successor to Northern Virginia as the world's largest data center hub by 2030. That is the central conclusion of JLL's North America Data Center Report – Year-End 2025.
The market study tracks 39 gigawatts (GW) of active capacity across the region and outlines a 35 GW development pipeline increasingly concentrated outside traditional strongholds.
The report signals that the industry's center of gravity is shifting. While Northern Virginia has long held the title of the largest data center market globally, JLL [...]
📅 - Unilever Selects Google Cloud for AI Future - Unilever has selected Google Cloud as its strategic cloud and AI partner in a five-year agreement aimed at accelerating the consumer goods company's enterprise-wide digital transformation. The decision positions Google Cloud at the center of Unilever's next phase of growth as the company restructures its data, marketing and operational backbone around advanced artificial intelligence capabilities.
The move reflects a broader shift in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, where AI-driven discovery, personalization and automation are rapidly redefining competitive advantage.
Under the partnership, Unilever will migrate its integrated data platforms and key enterprise applications to [...]
📅 - Hosted.com® Examines How Training Data Shapes Modern AI Models - Machine Learning is the primary method for training AI models. Rather than relying on fixed rules and hard-coded instructions, they are designed to identify patterns and relationships in large datasets to generate outputs.
The main sources of training data include: Publicly available web content gathered by AI crawlers. User-Generated Content (UGC), such as forums and social media platforms. Licensed datasets from content owners. Each of these affects how LLMs and generative AIs respond, what they prioritize, and where they may fail.
Additionally, Hosted.com® looks at the growing reliance on synthetic data generated by other AI systems. As high-quality human-created content becomes [...]
📅 - Digital Infrastructure Under Siege: DDoS Defense Guide - Uninterrupted access to applications and online services has become foundational to revenue, operations, and customer trust. From financial transactions and streaming platforms to AI-driven analytics and SaaS ecosystems, business continuity now depends on resilient network infrastructure. That dependency, however, has also made digital services a prime target for Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.
DDoS incidents are no longer isolated disruptions affecting fringe websites. They have evolved into strategic weapons capable of halting global platforms, overwhelming cloud-native architectures, and causing cascading outages across supply chains. For CIOs, CISOs, and infrastructure [...]
📅 - Aliro Secures $15M to Advance Physics-Based Security - Aliro has secured $15 million in an oversubscribed funding round aimed at accelerating what the company describes as a foundational shift in cybersecurity: replacing encryption models based on mathematical complexity with security rooted in the laws of physics.
The round, announced this week, was led by Gutbrain Ventures and included participation from existing backers such as Cisco Investments, alongside new investors Argon Ventures and Wonderstone Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Japan-based Murata.
The Boston-based company is positioning its platform at a moment when enterprises and governments are reassessing the durability of traditional cryptographic systems. For decades, [...]
📅 - Selector Raises $32M to Advance AI Observability - Selector has raised $32 million in a new funding round aimed at accelerating its AI-driven observability platform, as enterprises grapple with increasingly complex infrastructure and mounting downtime risks. The round, announced this week, was led by AVP, with participation from Ansa Capital, Two Bear Capital, Sinewave Ventures, Singtel Innov8 and existing investors.
The investment doubles Selector's valuation to $375 million and will be directed toward AI innovation, product development, global expansion and customer success initiatives.
The capital raise comes amid heightened demand for real-time infrastructure visibility across hybrid cloud, on-premise and distributed network [...]
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