Gulf Bridge International (GBI) has just announced a groundbreaking partnership with Iraq IXP. This strategic collaboration aims to extend low-latency peering services from the Gulf region to Iraq, thereby significantly enhancing Iraq's connectivity and access to global digital services.
Through this pivotal partnership, GBI is poised to strengthen Iraq's relationships with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, major digital service providers and global communities. This move is expected to fuel the capabilities of the country's people and businesses, ultimately giving a substantial boost to Iraq's digital economy.
This announcement builds upon an existing relationship between GBI and Iraq IXP, which began last year when GBI provided Iraq IXP access to its diverse cable network and Tier 1 connections through IP transit (IPT). This initial collaboration greatly improved connectivity throughout the country. Now, with the addition of GBI's low-latency peering services, Iraq IXP directly connects to digital service and content providers in the Gulf region. This development enables the direct exchange of traffic between Iraq, the GCC nations and the broader global community.
Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) are pivotal to expanding society's access to digital services. Iraq IXP — the country's first IXP — now benefits from GBI's strong relationships with GCC nations and major service providers. Crucially, it leverages GBI's network, which delivers average latency reductions of 40 ms. This addresses the growing demand for low-latency, reliable, high-bandwidth connectivity required to support the increasing data usage among communities, the development of innovative digital services and the overall growth of the region as a digital hub.
Brendan Press, CCO at GBI, commented: “We are pleased to enrich our existing relationship with Iraq IXP, with this announcement bolstering our ongoing commitment to the country’s digital journey. Iraq has the potential to become a hub for innovation and growth, and we’re proud to be pioneering and accelerating this process. Having globally connected societies encourages innovation and ensures everyone has greater access to better digital experiences, and our diverse cable network is the bedrock of this vision.”
Dr. Harith Al-Shwaily, managing director at Iraq IXP, added: “This marks an important step in our mission to channel digital investment and innovation into Iraq. GBI has been a long-standing partner, and we look forward to continued collaboration as we pursue our goal of delivering better diversity, quality and quantity of services to all of the Iraqi regions.”
