Saudi stc Launches Vision Submarine Cable in Red Sea

The Saudi Vision Cable, inspired by Vision 2030, is wholly owned by stc Group and spans over a distance of 1.1 million meters. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Saudi Vision Cable, inspired by Vision 2030, is wholly owned by stc Group and spans over a distance of 1.1 million meters. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Saudi stc Launches Vision Submarine Cable in Red Sea

The Saudi Vision Cable, inspired by Vision 2030, is wholly owned by stc Group and spans over a distance of 1.1 million meters. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Saudi Vision Cable, inspired by Vision 2030, is wholly owned by stc Group and spans over a distance of 1.1 million meters. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Saudi telecommunication company stc Group launched the "Saudi Vision Cable," the first high-speed cable in the Red Sea, through its first landing station in Jeddah.

The Governor of the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), Mohammed al-Tamimi, attended the launch ceremony.

The Saudi Vision Cable, inspired by Vision 2030, is wholly owned by stc Group and spans over a distance of 1.1 million meters.

The new cable will provide connectivity up to 18 Terabytes per second/fiber pair with 16 fiber pairs through four landings in Jeddah, Yanbu, Duba, and Haql.

Group CEO Olayan al-Wetaid explained that this achievement reveals the company's leadership in providing advanced maritime and international telecommunications services.

Wetaid indicated that it reflects "our comprehensive strategy that aims to diversify the Group's investment opportunities and support digital transformation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by boosting the digital infrastructure."

He explained that the cable would provide digital connectivity services for corporates and individuals between Saudi Arabia and the world by building a regional digital hub connecting the continents and helping meet the needs of companies and customers via an integrated digital ecosystem.

Saudi Vision Cable provides communication between several international information centers.

"It also achieves the raising level of the unified optical fiber platform that is cost-efficient and flexible, and provides access low latency - to all international cables in the landing stations and information centers of the stc Group," he added.

The new cable will be one of the submarine cables that will be linked to the MENA Hub connecting three continents of the globe, leveraging the strategic location of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It will help to enhance investment in international communication services and data centers.

It will join the 16 cables invested by stc Group between the east and the west of the Kingdom and provide more reliable internet service to meet the increasing demand for communications and internet at the local and international levels.

It will also allow all of the country's sectors to obtain high-speed internet services, including education, healthcare, and business which will, in general, provide economic and social benefits.



Microsoft, Turning 50, Dials up Copilot Actions to Stay in AI Game

The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)
The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)
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Microsoft, Turning 50, Dials up Copilot Actions to Stay in AI Game

The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)
The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)

Thousands of people swooned in a dark conference hall that felt more like a rock concert when a Microsoft product manager demonstrated the company's latest feature: how to sum numbers in Excel, with the click of a button.

"It was literally like Mick Jagger walked out," said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's consumer chief marketing officer, who started as an intern.

That was more than 30 years ago. On Friday, the day Microsoft turned 50, the company's leaders and staff gathered at its Redmond headquarters to remember the software maker's glory days while trumpeting what they hope will bring it into the future: more powerful artificial intelligence.

Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, is gaining a host of new features to make it more proactive. The version for consumers will start remembering personal facts about them. It will offer birthday reminders or support ahead of a presentation, or consumers can opt out, Mehdi said in an interview.

Copilot likewise will personalize podcasts and shopping recommendations, and it will let consumers task their AI to book events for them, or send a friend a gift while checking in for guidance. "It frees you up," said Mehdi.

Microsoft is hardly first to roll out action-taking or "agentic" software. As with rival systems, the AI will work best on popular sites where Microsoft has done some behind-the-scenes technical work, like with 1-800-Flowers.com and OpenTable, Mehdi said.

Mehdi recalled days when Microsoft was smaller and growing. He said CEO Bill Gates could devour three books' worth of information from one day to the next, at a time when the co-founder still worked on Microsoft software. Mehdi watched Steve Ballmer, Gates' eventual successor, chant "developers, developers, developers!" in a sweat-drenched shirt to rouse a crowd into the ".net" era.

Microsoft went from top of the pack to badly bruised in a high-profile lawsuit that US antitrust enforcers brought against it in 1998. Years later, younger companies and startups, among them Alphabet and ChatGPT creator OpenAI, beat it to the punch on key AI developments.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft's current CEO, is not standing still. The leader who turned Microsoft into the No. 2 cloud powerhouse challenged his executives at an internal summit this week, recalled Mehdi: "How do we rethink the way that we build the software?"

Microsoft is iterating on its chatbot technology in a crowded field that includes Elon Musk's xAI and Anthropic. It has added Copilot to its heavily used productivity suites for business while giving consumers a distinctive version.

"It's warm; it has that personality," said Mehdi. Some users have taken to this, while others find it asks too many questions, he said.

"When we get to now be more personalized, we can start to get smarter," Mehdi said. "We're part way through that journey."